


Queen Of The Castle

by AshwinMeird



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angel Castiel (Supernatural), Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Established Castiel/Dean Winchester, Everybody Lives, F/F, F/M, Family Drama, Happy Ending, LGBTQ Themes, Legacies, M/M, Men of Letters, Men of Letters Bunker (Supernatural), Oblivious Sam Winchester, Oz - Freeform, POV Alternating, POV Claire Novak, POV Dean Winchester, POV Sam Winchester, Protective Dean Winchester, Reunion, Wayward Sisters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:22:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 45,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26453311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AshwinMeird/pseuds/AshwinMeird
Summary: The Men of Letters is an organization built to save people from the horrors of the supernatural.  For the past three years they have been working to gain control over the Realm of Oz, before it falls to war.Well that's what Sam Winchester, a legacy like his father, thinks.  Until, an old friend and the right family come and try to show him the way while fighting to save one of their own.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Dorothy Baum/Charlie Bradbury, John Winchester/Mary Winchester, Kaia Nieves/Claire Novak
Comments: 38
Kudos: 33





	1. Sam

**Author's Note:**

> If a not very nice Sam bothers you this might not be the best fic. Sam is kind of a dick for the first half, basically it's like if you took Sam after the pilot and sent him with John instead of Dean. He learns though, don't worry.
> 
> As always my Beta Vanty deserves some love, mostly because I interrupted her studying several times while writing this. Feel free to comment if we missed something though!

Sam tapped a finger rhythmically, waiting for the meeting to start. Around the table were Men of Letters, legacies mostly, that were about his age, and some only just graduated. All of the senior members were in Oz or busy doing more important work elsewhere.

“Would you stop that?” Bela hissed, across the table Cole gave him a pained look at the obnoxious behavior of his girlfriend. Sure, Sam wasn’t his biggest fan but he had no idea how Cole put up with her for two whole years of dating. Sam resigned to stopping before Gordon could take Bela’s side, as he always does.

How was Dean friends with these people? Sam shook the thought of his older brother out of his head; Dean had abandoned them over a decade ago, after being the most promising graduate of his year. He may not have been a typical scholar like other Men of Letters but he knew his stuff, he could figure out an attack pattern faster than most senior members, but he always preferred field work like their mother as opposed to research. 

Nobody knows how he did it, no one was allowed to leave the Bunker unless they were on a mission, and if that they traveled with a group, for their own safety, but Dean had just left. It happened not long after Sam went to Stanford to become a doctor; Dean up and disappeared; he visited Sam at Stanford before Sam learned of his abandonment, that was a decade ago. Senior members sometimes chose to retire on some fancy island, but the only other member to leave had been Celeste Middleton when she ran away at only 13. Sam was only 10 when it happened but he remembered learning that she was killed a few months later.

Sam was pulled from his reverie by Kevin, who indicated that John had entered carrying several folders. Sam’s father was a prominent member of the Men of Letters, he was a legacy like most current recruits, he was also in charge of the Bunker as Magnus was in Oz with Sam’s mother.

“Ok, we’ve finally made some progress on the cleansing of Oz. After three years and fortifying the West castle, we were able to capture the Witch of the South.”

Everyone’s full attention snapped to John, the realm of Oz had been overrun by magic-folk who were at a war for power, causing the Men of Letters to have to go and be peacekeepers to bring Oz back to the state it had been in previously. There were four castles, each ruled by a powerful witch. West, the witch died mysteriously two years ago and they had surrounded the castle unable to enter it, North, the furthest from their portal but its witch seems relatively peaceful, East, thought to be the cause of most of the animosity between the four, and South, the closest to their portal and manned by a terrifically powerful witch who they’ve been trying to capture since they began their quest on the realm.

Ava Wilson, the only other person sitting at the table, piped up, “You really captured Rowena?”

“The Witch of the South, was imprisoned at nightfall two days ago in Oz, by use of six men and women, we surprised her from behind and were able to cuff her properly and escort her back here. All the information is located on these documents,” John sent the folders around the table with every member grabbing one, “Styne is in with her now, but she has thus far refused to speak.”

Sam flipped through the pages; the Witch was outside her castle for the first time in months, just wandering through the woods, but she was captured flawlessly as the Men of Letters always did. No one was even injured in the assault.

“What happened with her castle?” Questioned Kevin.

John grimaced. “South’s exterior thus far proves to be as impenetrable as West’s, we have concluded that only an able witch can enter without permission.”

“Then get permission from the red-haired bitch,” Muttered Gordon, who received a snicker from Cole.

“Before we resort to drastic measures Mr. Walker, we are attempting to reason with the witch, we want to know how this works if we want to return order to Oz.”

Cole continued to laugh at Gordon before asking, “Why don’t you let me take a crack at ‘er insteada that brute?”

Bela smiled at him condescendingly, “Don’t you think she would respond better to a woman's touch?”

“No one at this table will be interrogating the Witch,” John cut in, “Eldon is the best we have, he’ll get the information we need. Moving on, Kevin I want you to take Wilson and Trenton to start on the research with what new information we have. Bela, you're our best with magic, take Sam and Gordon to find out what spell these Witches could be using to lock their castles whether they’re alive or dead.”

Sam silenced his groan, if Bela and Cole’s bickering wasn’t bad enough he had to get stuck with Bela and Gordon’s incessant flirting only to hear Cole bitch about it later. Before that happened though, Linda Tran, Kevin’s mother who had joined the Men of Letters when Kevin was an infant, entered the room from the library.

“Senior Winchester, the Witch has finally spoken.”

John, who had been pointing something out in the folder to Kevin and Ava, looked up at Linda. “What did she say?”

“Well- um, after Senior Styne interrogating her for over four hours in silence, she had a request.”

“What do you mean ‘a request’?” John barked, he never handles things without a certain level of anger, “She's in no position to bargain, she’s in chains with no way out.”

“She seems to think she has the power here, she has the information and is convinced someone is coming to get her out, but she says there is one person here she will speak to.”

John laughed, “Well whomever is coming to save her can eat a bullet; who does she want to talk to?”

Linda’s face turned to a grimace, “Sam.”

~~~~~~~~~~~

Sam watched as his father paced in front of the dungeon door. Sam was honestly surprised they came down here; John Winchester did not bargain with monsters, he killed them. If John told him to go in there and put a witch killing bullet between her eyes Sam would. John and him may not have gotten along swimmingly when he was a kid, but Sam grew up he could see that his Dad was only doing the right thing; protecting people, researching things, the family business.

John was raised a Legacy, like Sam, so he preferred to figure out the problem and properly handle it. Mary was raised a hunter, Sam doesn’t even know how she survived. Not long after his graduation Sam went on a case for a couple of werewolves out in Indiana with some hunters, the hunters killed the two ‘bad’ werewolves as they put it (Sam took care of the rest himself). Not before Garth, a fellow Men of Letters, was bitten. When Sam tried to take out the werewolf that used to be his friend, one of the hunters took his gun; while they were burning the bodies Sam stole a gun from their trunk and shot the wolf, before taking off.

After that Sam realized just how dumb hunters were, they couldn’t even kill a pack of wolves without someone dying.

Beside him John stopped pacing, “You’re going in there Sam.”

Sam looked at him quizzically, but didn’t disagree. The last time he went against his Dad’s order was back in College when John said he should get a medical degree so he could work in the Bunker hospital when he wasn’t researching, but Sam thought he knew better. All he got out of that was a useless Law degree, an ex-girlfriend who couldn’t handle the life, and no medical knowledge beyond simple stitches.

John took his silence for disobedience, “We need to figure out what she knows, Sam, and if that means you have to deal with that bitch then you do it.”

“Yes sir.”

John clapped him on the shoulder, “You’re doing good work Sam, just watch out she’s a manipulative one.”

‘Sam’ always Sam, no one called him Sammy, not since Dean left.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rowena wasn’t what Sam expected, he heard stories from those who had previously ran into her. She was told to be poised, elegant, superior. He heard stories of her in lavish dresses and well done hair. But he supposes tales like that are to be expected when dealing with a witch as powerful as this one.

She’s fixing him with a cold glare, “You’re Samuel Winchester right?”

He tried to match her glare with a bitch-face but there were too many conflicting bits of information clogging his brain. “Yes, may I ask why you wanted to talk to me?”

“Damn you’re grumpy, still better than Styne though. And you’re going to have to figure that out on your own, I know you can do it.” She smiled wickedly where she was leaning back in her chair.

Deciding to end whatever she was trying to start, Sam said, “Well I’ll tell you what I do know then? Oz is in turmoil, lots of in-fighting between the castles, no one is really running the place. But the Men of Letters are starting to restore order so you figured you have to flee out a portal you didn’t realize we had access to, with a disguise and everything.” He decided the flannel and jeans made more sense as a costume than a sudden wardrobe change.

“Oz is fine, you people are the problem.”

"You might not see it yet, but once we’re done everything will be peaceful again; Oz united under one rule.”

She sat up quickly, short pieces of red hair falling over her face. “Oz. Is. Fine. We are more peaceful now than we have been in the last century, you people mousing around the West Castle had stirred up some drama but, for your information, we calmed everyone down. After I killed the West Witch-”

“Wait, you killed the Witch of the West?”

“Yes I did, now shus. After I killed her, we divided the land around the castle between North and South ‘cause East was already the largest, and everything was good until you people came along and started to take things that don’t belong to you.”

That didn’t make sense, Rowena wasn’t even seen in Oz until a year after the West Witch died. Sam shook his head that was just a manipulation tactic, just like saying things are good in Oz, his Mom was there. She’s seen the fighting, that place is unstable and maybe this delusional witch couldn’t see it but that didn’t matter anyways.

“Of course you care more about the South than it being even, right?”

She made a face, “Why would I care about the South? If anything I’d care about the East, that's where I rule, but we want to be a fairly ruled land.”

The East? That castle was taken over two years ago by some so-called Freedom Fighter, who was causing strife between the three; not Rowena.

“I’m done with your games Rowena, we know you rule the South, but you want more than that don’t you?”

She looked so caught off guard that Sam almost almost patted himself on the back; she stared down at the magic cuffs before responding, “Well I guess these clunky things make sense now.” She started laughing, hysterically. She stopped laughing long enough to look at his confused expression before starting up again, coughing at the same time. “Y-you,” She took a deep breath, “You think I’m Rowena?”

Sam blanked, what kind of strategy is this? Pretending not to be who you are, sure it works on crappy T.V. shows, but not in real life. The clothes and attitude would make a little more sense if- No, this is Rowena. The Men of Letters don’t make mistakes.

“Sam, Samuel, Sammy,” Apparently-Not-Rowena chidded sadly, “You might not remember me, but I remember you. You were such a sweet little ten year old, so happy, so innocent. I don’t recognise the hardened man in front of me, would I have become like this if I stayed?”

It felt wrong to hear her call him Sammy, but deep down something about it felt right too. Only a few people have ever been allowed to call him that. There’s no way this witch, person, whomever in front of him was ever one of them.

She looked hurt. “Dean remembered me, he was older I guess, and he was my best friend, I hoped you would figure it out though.”

How did she know Dean, how did she know Sam? He stared at her red hair and suddenly remembered the tenacious red-haired counterpart to all of Dean’s schemes until his brother lost his best friend at 14.

“Celeste.”

“Surprise,” She gave him a watery smile, “I’m not dead.”

There were a million things going through his head; why did they lie about her death, how did she get out, how did she survive, how did she see Dean again, why did she run. But none of that really mattered she was safe now.

“Celeste this is great, you can come back. You can be a Woman of Letters again!”

“Why would I do that?” She scuffed, “You people are ignorant control freaks. They treated me like a child soldier, you kill innocents all the time, your head would explode before you accepted that good monsters exist, and you can’t even handle that I like women. No way in hell I’m coming back here.”

“So what if a few innocent people die in the crossfire, it’s bound to happen sometimes but we only send out the best, and we do way better than those moronic hunters. We actually make a difference.”

Her face was stone. “I’m not talking about people, I’m talking about those innocent monsters that you decided were bad news. You play judge, jury, and executioner and you can’t even be bothered to talk to them. And, this is coming from a hunter by the way, we may not have your fancy smancy shit but we get the bad guys and we help our families.

“More importantly we don’t try to kill our friends in cold blood, and leave them on the ground before running back home to Mommy ‘cause the mean hunters hurt our feelings.”

“What are you talking about?” Sam was pretty sure he knew the answer and as little as he wanted to be reminded of what he did, he had to hear it.

“You remember that hunt, don’t you Samuel? You were out with a couple of hunters, Jo and Ellen right? Two bad werewolves in a pack, the rest had never even seen a human heart, you killed them anyways. Slaughtered them. Then, while the Harvelles cleaned up your mess, you try to kill one of your best friends. You are some fucking lucky you didn’t pick up a silver gun, Sam.”

“What?” He snapped, “Garth’s alive?”

“Alive and well, he has a family now, an adorable little house. He’s a dentist too, for monsters, ‘cause teeth like those must be hell to clean.” She looked at him with disgust. “I don’t like this person you’ve become, how were you just OK with killing Garth?”

“I wasn’t OK with it Celeste-”

“Charlie. I changed it.” 

“It had to be done, he wouldn’t want to live like this.”

“Like what, happy, a wife, a kid? What's so wrong with that, or is it the monster thing? Turning isn’t a death sentence, Dean said you weren’t like that but I guess he was wrong. You’re just as bad as the rest of these librarians.”

It hurt to hear Celes- Charlie say those things, but was she wrong? Could there be good and bad monsters; there were good and bad people? Who was he to decide-

A red light started flashing in the room. Followed by a shrill alarm. Sam flinched. Charlie smiled. 

“Why are you smiling?” He demanded.

“I said I was leaving today.”

“Who’s doing this.”

The door opened behind him.

“Surely you figured it out by now.” Was all she said.

A gun clicked just behind his head. 

“Hiya Sammy.”

He figured it out.

There's only one person that can call him Sammy.


	2. Dean

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not going to spend much time talking about it, and it doesn't make much difference to the story. But assume that the events of roughly the first 10 seasons happen just with Charlie instead of Sam. And there's slightly less emotional repression and no Azazel or true vessels stuff.

“Scat! Take that old man.” Dean’s sort-of-Daughter-In-Law smirked at him victoriously, waving her three winning cards in his face. He leveled Kaia with a glare, but the young woman was just as immune as Claire. 

“If you can’t handle losing, maybe you shouldn’t play,” Kaia suggests, before laughing not unkindly at him.

Dean stared down at his own cards, a set of three Queens worth 30.5 points, but not enough to win. He tossed his remaining quarter in the pile; conceding defeat. He contemplated throwing his cards at her out of spite, but he set them down. He was more mature than that.

And because Cas was there. 

Mostly the Cas thing actually.

Sensing Dean’s distress Cas looked up at him from the living room, not breaking his conversation with Jody, but still smirking at him. Cas turned back before a smile could grace Dean's lips at seeing his Angel/boyfriend talking to his pseudo mother.

It wasn’t always like this, it took Dean longer that he would have liked to finally get over his internalized biphobia and acknowledge that he was in love with a certain Angel. But Charlie was there. They learned a lot about each other that day.

Kaia took one look at the heart eyed expression on his face before turning to Alex and stating, “If he keeps staring at Cas like that I’m going to start chucking quarters.”

Dean’s attention turned back to his two tablemated ganging up on him. Alex started laughing, before patting him on the shoulder condescendingly. “It’s OK if you need your boyfriend to help you right now, I know your ego is suffering a lot from the loss.”

That sent Kaia back over the edge. Her laughter caused Cas and Jody to look at the three of them in a mix of exasperation and love.

“Not cool, so not cool. And I don’t see you with any coins left there either.”

“She also doesn’t rely on her Angel Of The Lord every time someone beats her at cards,” Kaia remarked.

Why was he letting her date his daughter?

“Like you don’t go pouting to Claire whenever you lose,” Alex reminds her, a touch of pain in her voice. She wasn't the biggest fan of relationship talk ever since her boyfriend turned out to be a vampire. It also didn’t help that she lived with both Dean and Cas, and Claire and Kaia who are really affectionate with their loved ones. It was even worse when Charlie and Dorothy stopped by.

Kaia blushed, still not used to the loving teasing that comes with a family. They may not be blood but that’s what they are. 

That’s what he really likes about Kaia being with his kid; because of her Claire had the shortest gay panic of the pseudo Winchesters, she bet both Charlie and Dean by at least a decade.

Charlie went through it alone, after the Men of Letters decided her preference for women would make her less of a legacy and she ran.

Dean, similarly, lived through the Men of letters’ opinions on the matter. But he never told any one. It wasn’t until Charlie told him that she wasn’t just helping Ruby try to stop the apocalypse; she was sleeping with her that Dean decided to come out for the first time

Charlie subsequently helped him once she realized just why Cas going into that reservoir hit him so hard.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Hours later found Dean laying on the couch, his legs over Cas’ lap, while they waited for Jody to finish with dinner. Dean offered to help, only to be turned down. Jody was like that sometimes; she was a mother to almost everyone that came through her door so she needed to act like it. Don’t get Dean wrong, he loves the food and care, but he has to force her to just rest sometimes.

Dean and Cas were discussing some Heaven politics, having been the ones to sort it out and create an actual functioning government upstairs, when a car sounded in the driveway. Dean had to cut off Cas’ rant against some low rank Angel, Avriel maybe, running for a higher rank without support, when footsteps landed on the doorstep outside.

Kaia hit the top of the stairs at the same time as Jody and Dean entering the porch with guns drawn. They weren't expecting anyone, except Claire who was due the next morning.

Dean signaled for Jody to open it before whomever was on the other side was able to knock. He kept his gun aimed at the door, someone dumb enough to come to the house of a Hunter should be accustomed to a seeing a gun. 

The figure revealed behind the door brought up more concern than danger.

“Dorothy?”

The woman looked at Dean, she wasn’t one to show much expression on her face. In the time that Dean has known her; either as a fellow Freedom Fighter for Oz or as Charlie’s long term girlfriend he had only seen faint whispers of expression, and most were drawn out by his little sister. 

But now she looked solemn, grim almost.

He dropped his gun onto a side table and ushered her inside. Worry spreading in his chest. Ever since she took the position of East Castles Witch, Dean had only ever seen her outside of Oz for important days. Holidays and such.

Once they were seated around the dining room table, no one seemed to have it in them to ask what was happening. Ignorance is better than pain a lot of the time.

By the time Alex, who was studying with headphones on, realized something was up and joined them, Cas had already brought out a glass of whiskey for Dot.

Dorothy stared at the tumbler of whisky, Dean himself could use a drink but he had been sober ever since helping Kaia overcome her drug addiction caused by her dreamwalking over a year prior.

After a long drink Dot finally spoke, her voice thin and unsteady, “Claire left yesterday, never reached the portal, Charlie went to find her, never came back.” Clear, concise, very Dorothy.

Dean had dealt with a lot during his years of life; his father treated him like a toy soldier, his mother was never around for more than an angered conversation, his brother treated him like an enemy when he was Sam's only ally most of the time, not to mention Charlie and Cas’ affiliation for dying. But, hearing that his sister and daughter were gone, possibly dead, was almost too much.

Kaia and Dean both had a tear running down their faces when Dorothy spoke up again, “Claire was last seen in South, instead of heading North to the portal.”

“Why was she there, she knows better than to bother Rowena when she’s visiting her aunts?” Jody muttered unto her hands.

“She was getting my tea wasn’t she?” Kaia asked, to which Dorothy nodded. 

Down in Tiry, just across the East-South border, there’s a small coffee shop run by a witch that specializes in herbal teas. Ones that have actual magical properties, not just whatever nonsense celebrities are marketing.

It helps when Kaia has some of her more disturbing dreams, and Dean has to admit it's actually quite helpful, having drank some after a stressful hunt.

Dot fidgeted with the silken blouse she was wearing, Charlie had spent a long time trying to move her away from the pantsuit and tied up hair Dorothy had when they all first met. Charlie briefly dressed her in the typical flannel of any hunter worth their salt, but once Dot assumed the throne she compromised by wearing blouses and button ups with jeans.

“Claire was last seen entering the tea shop, I have some of my people on it but there are no leads for her yet.” She took a deep breath. “We have a better idea of what happened to Charlie though.”

Dean shifted his chair closer to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. Her breathing was choppy when she continued, “The portal down by the South-West border, the one we thought was having problems because it was in West. It’s actually in South.”

There are three known portals in Oz, one in the northern part of East where they usually hop through with it being Dorothy’s land, one up in North not far from the West-North border that stopped being used after the fall of the Wicked Witch of the West, and one down apparently in South that’s being blocked by something. Or someone.

“I spoke to Rowena about it a few weeks ago, she’s never personally been near it because she feared whatever was causing people to disappear every time they used it. I did some snooping and figured out exactly who was to blame”

She shifted to look right at Dean, pointedly. Dread started to crawl through him, but he couldn’t even bring himself to think what she might be implying.

To everyone else in the room that hadn’t figured it out she said, “The Men of Letters have captured the portal and have been kidnapping those who use the portal.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dean sat on the bed in the back room of Jody’s house that he and Cas had long since claimed, clutching the old burner phone Charlie made him not long after they were reacquainted. It only had one contact in it, and calls were only outgoing, with no chance of anything being backtraced.

Cas, who had followed Dean, who ran from the table after Dorothy’s reveal, sat beside him. No expression showed on the Angels face from years of being an emotionless cosmic being, but Dean could still see the worry in his shoulders and feel it in the hand gripping his own.

The phone buzzed against his ear, ringing once, twice, thri-

“Hello?”

Dean’s chest was tight, it had been a while since he heard that voice. “It’s me,” Was all he could bring himself to say.

“I am glad you figured it out, we’ve got your girl.”

“Just Charlie, or is Claire there too?” Cas asked, in Dean’s silence.

“Not sure if it is better or worse for you, but we only have Celeste.”

So Claire was still missing, but they know where Charlie is. Locked up, underground, and in one of the most fortified places in America.

“Do they know it's her, or is she just someone else that they captured?” Dean questioned after a beat of silence, trying to gauge a reaction from his boyfriend.

“Worse. They think she is Rowena.”

“What?!” Dean honestly wasn’t sure if that came from him or Cas, but it didn’t matter. “How did they come up with that one?” That was Dean.

“They have been in Oz for about three years not, longer than you I believe, but they only decided recently that taking over each castle and ruling it themselves is the best course of action. Your mother and Magnus are leading the assault by kidnapping witches and trying to figure out how the ruling system of the Castles works.”

“That’s why they are only capturing some humans that pass through, it’s just witches. What’s happening to them after they’re questioned?” He was pretty sure of the answer but he needed to hear it.

“Killed,” Said the voice tersely, “A dozen, so far. We have surrounded the West Castle, but no one goes near it. Now that we are moving further into South we are encountering more and more people. They have had their eyes on Rowena for a while now, they need information. And if Celeste cannot keep up the ruse they will kill her for desertion and treachery.”

“We need to get her out as soon as possible.”

“How far are you?”

Dean never discussed his location, or even who he was with specifically, for safety. 

“We’re about five hours away, but we can’t do this at night, too many alarms active.” No one went in or out at night so extra warding and alarms were placed to prevent intruders.

“Tomorrow at noon, come in the same way you left. I can disable the alarms again, but not much more.”

Cas asked, “Who is there that will be a danger to us?” 

“Our Chapter is significantly weakened from the assault on Oz. But we still have some guards around. The only senior members here, though, are John and I. She’s managed to delay her arrival until the morning, but Eldon should be in with her when you arrive.”

“If we play our cards right we should be able to get in and out,” Dean took a deep breath and bit his lip. “What room will she be in?”

“Dungeon 2A.”

“Crap, the one they set up when they captured Abaddon for five fucking minutes.” Unfortunate as it may be for them, Dean remembers that dungeon as being one of the closest to the door they need to enter through.

“It works out for you actually, there is not muh security surrounding her because they have anti-witch precautions in place, warding and fancy hand-cuffs mostly. Be careful, it took a lot to get the two of you out, I cannot have you back here.”

“Thank you, Linda. This really means a lot.” The phone clicked off.

Linda Tran, the Head of Research and Development, helped Charlie escape and gave her the directions to her own aunts house, when she caught Charlie staring starry-eyed at a female model on TV, and later helped Dean when she realized how truly unhappy he was following in his parents’ footsteps.

Without her neither Charlie or Dean would be as happy as they are now, with their family. Charlie created the phone after Linda’s aunt passed, in case of emergencies. As a rule she calls Linda once a year just to thank her. Dean only ever called if there was an emergency, because Linda wasn’t supposed to have any contact outside of the organization. And he informed her to pray to Cas if she ever needs anything.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The following morning found Dean, Cas, Jody, and Kaia on route to Lebanon, while Dorothy and Alex were heading back to Oz, meeting up with Donna on the way.

Dean tapped the wheel of the Impala, going down the highway at 20 miles over the speed limit. Kaia was beside him, looking through blueprints of the Bunker for the millionth time since they formulated the plan. He and Cas always seeded the passenger seat to one of the girls if they were in the Impala.

When they arrived at the Bunker, driving through an old road in the trees to the side of the property that no one outside of them knows about, they had half an hour before go time. The door Bunker barely a dozen steps from the tree line and almost fully blocked by a large bush.

They didn’t have any intentions of going in there and massacring anyone, but they were dealing with trained killers, who had no kindness for anyone outside of the organization, especially a deserter like Dean. But they would shoot as non fatally as possible, they still needed to make it out alive.

At twelve on the dot they approached the door, each holding a gun with at least one more on their person, except Cas who had an Angel Blade and his powers. 

Cas snapped the door frame off so Dean could scratch out the warding and then pick the lock. 

The Bunker was soundless when they entered, down the hallway they couldn’t see another person. The light was dim above them but they slowly moved forwards.

Kaia, with the least fighting ability, stopped and slipped into an old office not far from the exit. She surveyed the room before turning around and hiding in the darkness; guarding the exit for them.

Dean, Cas, and Jody advanced; the Bunker might be one of the most fortified buildings ever against monsters, but the true threat was another human. Especially one who spent most of their life there. 

They checked each room as they went by, but this was a mostly abandoned part of the Bunker and all of them were empty. Eventually they came across the shooting range, gunshots were going off inside. Sneaking by almost worked before the door opened not twenty feet ahead of them and two guards stepped out catching sight of them immediately.

Jody, closer to the wall opposite the range, ducked into the weapons storage room, and Dean stepped behind Cas instinctively.

The two guards started shooting at them. Dean shot back. Jody hit one in the shoulder. He went down with a cry.

Cas moved forwards when the other was distracted. Advancing the last few feet, Cas knocked him out with a touch to the forehead.

Dean squatted beside them, pulling the gun from the hand of the wounded man. Walt, he recognised, and upon further investigation he recognized the other as Roy. He smirked at Walt menacingly, seeing realization in his eyes.

Cas knocked out and healed Walt, before Jody tied both up and they were dragged back into the shooting range.

Cas followed Dean around the corner towards the dungeons. Encountering no one else before stepping in, expecting the worst he was pleasantly surprised to find his father standing alone outside of Charlie’s dungeon.

The man didn’t notice Dean and Cas’ approach. 

“Hey Dad, long time no see,” Dean greeted with his gun trained on him.

John whirled around; wide-eyed and slack-jawed. The hallway was small and they were not far from one another but not within arms length so he stayed in place.

“Why are you here, Boy? How’d ya even get in?” John questioned, the smallest trace of panic in his voice.

He hadn’t addressed Dean by name since he was a child. Dean was a soldier to him, not a person.

“I’m here for her,” He said pointing at the door behind his father.

John scoffed, “Look at you now, you ran away like a coward and you’re helping witches.”

“That’s not a witch,” Dean said, and upon seeing the confused face his father was giving him, he continued, “You may remember her from a while back, that’s Celeste Middleton.”

What happened next was more of a blend of actions than a definable series of events; John’s face paled at her name, he reached for his gun, Dean punched him as hard as he could in the nose, Cas stepped forwards and put John to sleep, after giving him a second to clue in to just who punched him. Cas, of course, decided to leave John’s nose brokens and bleeding where he lay on the ground.

Dean took a step backwards, eying the door warily. He knew how the Men of Letters worked, anything non human was below them. Right now they believed Charlie a witch, so she’s been interrogated as one, at best that meant mind-fuckery and incriminating questions. At worst- 

No he couldn’t let that though continue.

Cas placed a hand on his shoulder, the left one where the handprint had long since faded. Dean looked into the deep blue eyes of the love of his life, his source of strength. He could do this.

He took a deep breath, looking to the metal door. A flashing red light went off. Followed by a shrill alarm. Dean flinched. Cas didn’t even blink.

“Keep watch, Cas.”

“Of course, Dean.”

Dean pushed open the door.

Across from Charlie was not Eldon Styne.

“Surely you figured it out by now,” Charlie said without looking at him.

Another step forward. A click of his gun.

He held it up to the interrogator's head.

“Hiya Sammy.”

Sam shot up in his chair.

Oh how far they’ve come.

He was holding a gun to his baby brother’s head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed!
> 
> Next chapter is from Claire's POV. Hopefully that interests you.
> 
> Praise and apologies to my Beta for dealing with my last minute writing.


	3. Claire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been picking at this sporadically all week and made minimal actual planning involving the lore, sooooooooo... 
> 
> *Uploads chapter and hides*
> 
> Thanks to my beta who sounds as confused as me when it comes to made up sort-of-politics/magical-systems.

The cobbled roads of Oz tilted underfoot; the golden haze of the early afternoon sun filled the air. Faeryfolk, munchkins, and witches milled about around Claire as she strode towards the small town of Tiry.

“Claire!” A voice to her left shouted. She spun around wildly, hunter instincts kicking in instantly. The owner of the voice was waving frantically at her by the town gate.

“Hello, Krillian,”

The taller man ran towards her, trapping her in a bear hug before they started walking into town together. He reminded Claire of her aunt Charlie sometimes; the two of them were like red-haired puppies with an affiliation for hugs.

“What are you doing this far South,” He said teasingly. “Let me guess… Your perfect little girlfriend needs her tea?”

She rolled her eyes, “Ran out faster this time. Get this, my Pops started drinking it after hunts. But I guess it's better than drinking...” She trailed off, unsure how to continue.

“Hey, woah, hold up.” Krillian stopped walking and put a hand on her shoulder. “When he was drunk he never- like he never did anything, right?” He sounded more upset than was frankly necessary, but he was always like that. Whomever eventually landed his heart would be lucky, but he wasn’t quite feisty enough for her taste. Unlike a certain brown-eyed Dreamwalker waiting for her at home.

She softly brushed his hand off of her shoulder, it was sweet of him to be concerned, but Dean would never even think of doing that; drunk or sober. Hell, even after they were reacquainted and she threatened to shoot him if he didn’t let her go, he just surrendered.

“I don’t think it’s physically possible for him to hurt me, Krill. It’s just-” She paused unsure how to continue. “It’s just when he was drunk he tended to get sad easily. I mean I know he and my aunt Charlie went through a lot as kids but they’re good at hiding it until they’ve had a few drinks.”

Dean was always kind and compassionate, and even after all the work they, mostly Castiel, went through to build up his self esteem, when he used to get a few bottles deep he’d just get this look on his face. Claire knew the look; had worn the look. The one that just says ‘I feel like I’ve failed everyone’ and she knows it’s nothing personal, but whenever he looks like that she just wants to throw apologies at him for everything she put her family through, even just the normal teenager stuff.

It only got worse when something reminded him of Sam.

The name Sam Winchester, above even the parental Winchester’s, was banned in their home. The only things she knew of her uncle came from Dean muttering about what reminded him of his little brother.

“Sammy used to just stare at me sometimes, like he was wondering how he was related to a human Simon Says doll or something.” or “God, he just looked so broken, but it would’ve killed him to hear what really happened to Sully.”

If she ever met her uncle she was torn between hugging him for being just about the only thing that helped her father survive that hellhole after Charlie was forced out and punching him for being a complete dickbag of a young adult.

“I get it, I think,” Krillian said after a few minutes; they had already started walking again. “I mean Ma gets all introspective anytime she has too much tea, she just thinks about her whole life and it's like she can only focus on the bad things in her life.” Claire nodded. 

By the time they arrived outside of Coven-TEA, they were laughing at some terrible joke one of them had made. Krillian looked up at his mother’s storefront and his face shifted to fear.

“Shoot,” He muttered like it was a curse word. “I didn’t mean to walk this far with you, I’m supposed to be picking wylm roses right now.”

Claire raised an eyebrow. “You willingly abandoned the fields during picking season, how have you survived this far.”

In all honesty, his mother, Madam Ira, would never actually do anything to Krillian, but the herbs and such had to be picked at specific times of day. Like wylm roses had to be harvested at the brightest hours of the day. She now officially knows too much about tea, her girlfriend better enjoy it seeing what Claire has to endure to get it; tea facts.

“This is on you for not visiting me until you were about to head back home,” He says pointedly, and OK, fair she didn’t visit the entire time she was in Oz because she started to shadow Dorothy around the East Castle. She felt this strange pull towards whatever Dorothy had to say about the Council of Four Chairs and just castle affairs in general.

“OK, now I feel bad. Hows’about I visit you first next time I’m in… realm.”

He wrapped her in another hug. “I expect you to uphold that.” He released her, smiling crookedly. “Goodbye, Claire-i-tea.”

He started to walk away as Claire spluttered, “I- What? You can’t just- Dude that was terrible the first time you said it and hasn’t changed.” He was laughing now, remembering the first dozen times he’d seen her in the tea shop before actually speaking to her. “Goodbye to you too I guess.”

He rounded the corner a couple shops down still laughing to himself like the year old pun was the funniest thing ever, but her father would do the same thing to Charlie all too often. Her and Krillian reminded Claire of them a lot sometimes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The shop wasn’t much to look at; walls covered in bags of herbs and such, shelves down the centre covered in infusers and liquid addements. An older woman to Claire’s left was sampling anti-aging teas with a wide-eyed munchkin associate.

“Oh, Claire, it’s such a pleasure to see you again,” Called a misty voice in front of Claire.

Claire turned to look at the front counter and said, “Madam Ira, you know I wouldn’t leave without seeing you first.”

Madam Ira, the shop owner and a practicing natural born witch, smiled at her and laughed quietly, “We both know you’re just here to get that special tea for your love.” Madam Ira turned to examine the wall behind her. She kept the more, not dangerous, but the teas that tend to have more effect on the drinker. 

Cafa, the tea she needed to buy for Kaia, was ultra calming and as a result could inhibit the users' reflexes and make them more agreeable if too much was taken at once, so it could only be used in small moderated portions. That was the reason Dean disliked using it so much, he had grown accustomed to the inebriation of alcohol but the tea still stunted his reflexes and awareness. Cas always monitored Dean for the first, most potent, few hours, and Claire did the same for Kaia.

Wylm rose powder was up there as well; it didn’t have much effect as a tea, only minimal pain relief, but as a powder if you combined it with the right spellsword it caused extreme pain comparable to being pepper sprayed. The effect only lasted about ten minutes before going away completely, but Madam Ira didn’t just sell it to anyone.

“Your daddy start drinking it like I told ‘im to?” Madam Ira asked, Claire nodded before she placed a mid sized bag of tea leaves in front of Claire. “Here ya go dear. How has he been doing with it?”

“He’s good, I think. I mean he’s not a fan of being a little off for a couple of hours, but I really think it’s helping him.”

The witch placed her hand over Claire’s. “You really needn’t worry so much, he’s doing his best for you. And he’s got your angel daddy to help ‘im.”

Claire laughed, Madam Ira and her would sometimes have long talks about Claire’s life over tea. Don’t get her wrong, Claire loved her family and would do anything for them, but sometimes it was nice to just talk to someone who didn’t really know them. Maybe this is why people go to therapists, but Claire had Madam Ira and magical tea, she didn’t need a shrink.

“I honestly didn’t know Papa could get any more protective of Pops until he drank like a single mug of this stuff.” She doesn’t really remember when she started calling Cas and Dean that, but after she accepted and had time to heal from what happened to her parents, she was able to see them separately from the person/angel that she originally saw them as. They were Dean and Cas, her dorky and overprotective dads, and she was happier than she could ever say that they are a part of her life.

Madam Ira smiled at her, giving Claire’s hand a light squeeze. “Now, enough about us old-timers,” Claire laughed, thinking about the bitch-face Dean would give her if he knew anyone called him old, “How is that lovely girlfriend of yours?”

“Kaia,” Claire sighed, Kaia was amazing as always. Claire had only been in Oz for about three weeks, about 13 days in her normal universe, but the time difference in Oz fluctuated from anywhere from about equivalent to one day home was two or three here, but she missed Kaia like crazy. “God I miss her, so much. Charlie asked me if I wanted to stick around another day, I didn’t even hesitate before saying no. 

“I never get attached to people, at least not this fast. How does she have this much of an affect on me?” Claire questioned

Kaia had only entered her life a little over a year ago, and she was trapped in The Bad Place for several months of that, but Claire couldn’t see the world without her amazing human in it anymore.

“Love will do that to you,” Was all the witch said. “How is she doing with the dreams?”

“They are getting a lot better, I mean I still wake up some night to her flinching or tossing wildly, but she’s definitely doing a lot better.” Claire looked away from Madam Ira, unable to look someone in the eye and talk about feelings at the same time. A habit she probably picked up from Dean. “It’s hard for her, really hard. And for me too, but she hasn’t had any drug cravings and she seems so much happier now.”

“And how are you feeling?”

Madam Ira was the only one Claire felt comfortable telling her honest feelings to without overthinking, her dads or Kaia, even Alex, Jody, and the more extended family, tend to either shy away from feeling (cough Dean cough) or take how she feels to literally or personally, like her feeling sad means she’s completely unhappy with the wonderful life she’s built with the people around her. It could be exhausting sometimes, but it was coming from a place of love and concern, and it mostly meant that she had to do anything more than just choose her words carefully.

“I’m happy, truly, honestly happier than I have been in a long time, maybe ever.” Claire’s smile threatened to split her face. “Dot and Char have fixed this place up, Jody and the others are wonderful people and my family just keeps growing, Papa and Pops are only hunting when they’re really needed, and Kaia is amazing as always.”

She looked down at the bag in front of her, happy, she’d take that.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Claire stayed with Madam Ira until the shop closed in the early afternoon. She always allotted time with the witch when she was leaving Oz, but today she was delayed upon exiting Dorothy and Charlie's castle.

She was just saying her goodbyes to Charlie, who made Claire promise to hug everyone when she arrived home on behalf of Charlie, when Dorothy came running from a conference. The witches of each castle, Dorothy, Rowena, and the North Witch Julian, held bi-weekly conferences on the current issues and such of Oz. Dot had told Claire about the disappearance problem early in her visit, but no one knew why. Dorothy had told her to pass the message along to her dads and the others that they may need some assistance in Oz, but for now the Castle Witches had it under control. 

It honestly worried Claire that there was unrest in Oz again, she and the rest of her family had played a huge part in taking down the West Witch, which now left her castle vacant and her land dying, and reestablishing a functioning ruling system in the realm. Rowena had started her ascent to the South throne years prior after stumbling to Oz after a not so pleasant encounter with Dean and Claire’s aunt Jo, but they helped her gain the position after Ro agreed that she would stay in her lane and only control South. Dorothy just took her rightful place in East after her father died holding the position before the Liberation of Oz. And they convinced Julian to spend less time high on magical herbs and actually govern the quarter of a realm he ruled; he was pretty good at it once someone told him to just step back in line, actually.

She said goodbye to Madam Ira and went to let herself out the back of the shop. She had tucked the baggy of cafa powder in her bag, she kept clothes and other personal products at Charlie and Dot’s so the bag just contained a few more important of her belongings, like one of Kaia’s finished dream journals and Dean’s old lighter, along with several weapons. Oz for the most part was safe, but travel between towns took her into relatively uninhabited areas; she wouldn’t walk around her own world without at least a gun, so she opted to not be defenseless wandering around a magical realm.

The hallway leading up to the back exit was dark, she could see the glow of afternoon light peaking through under the door. Instead of the normal golden glow there was a pale pink one, Claire figured the sun was reflecting off of some new pink object outside of the door or something similar.

She lifted her arm to the doorknob but her hand never made contact. Her hand passed through the knob, but she couldn’t pull away. A tug pulled at her entrapped limb, she jerked forwards, still trying to escape. The door had transformed into a spiral of pink clouds in front of her. 

After a final pull to her arm, Claire was yanked fully into the not-door. The pink around her faded slowly to black and her head started to spin before she collapsed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

The first thing she was aware of was cold. Her jacket was still on but the air around her had a definite chill to it. Slowly Claire cracked her eyes open. She was thankful for the dim lights as her head was still spinning violently. The room around her slowly focused, she could see the table she was cuffed and chained to, the walls around her were old and grey brick, she was obviously underground. None of that really helped though, most of the older buildings in Oz had basements that looked exactly like this but she had rarely seen an empty basement this large at any place other than the East Castle.

The contents of Claire's bag were spilled out on the table in front of her was, somehow, the most concerning thing to her. Her few pieces of clothing seemed to just be piled to the side, the journal and lighter were also out, her angel blade and silver knife were right in front of her, just out of reach of her chained hands. One of her guns was there as well, the one with silver bullets with devils trapped carved in, her other gun was missing though.

Her witch killing gun.

Not that it being a witch surprised her terribly, Oz had a very high population of magic folk. And supernatural beings didn’t often take to nicely to a WInchester wandering about.

After leaving the Men of Letters Dean built up a reputation as one of the best hunters to alive, maybe ever, when he and Charlie reunited she was basically a pseudo WInchester. Then came Cas who only ever interacted with Dean and sometimes Charlie, he was another WInchester. Family doesn’t end in blood, and Dean was the centre of the huge family, and the most notorious, so they prided themselves as calling themselves Winchesters; Claire especially, she may not change her actual name but she was often recognised by monsters, angels, hunters and the like as Claire Novak Winchester, and it always brought a smile to her face.

But whomever this is clearly wasn’t doing this because they recognised her, no one could be stupid enough to kidnap Claire unless they were suicidal, right? Especially in Oz where her aunts had so much power.

Her question was soon answered when the door to her right opened with an almost deafening creak. In the dim light she could make out a female like figure twirling Claire’s gun around a finger.

“My, my, my,” Said the figure in a sing-songy voice, “You seem to be in quite the predicament here Claire.”

Claire’s eyes widened, “Rowena?” One did not simply yell at Rowena so she kept her voice monotone.

And because Ro had a flair for the dramatics, the light brightened in the room revealing the witch in a lavish green dress with an unsettling grin on her face.

“Why am I here?”

Rowena took the seat across from her saying, “Well, Deary, I seem to be in quite the quandary regarding the West Castle. You see without a witch the four divisions of Oz are unbalanced, and of course your darling aunt and the hippy won’t listen to me, so I figured I’d talk to someone who’d see reason.”

“What? Why me?”

Rowena sighed like Claire was being too taxing for her. “Because, young one, you can help me.”

Claire stared at her blankly resisting the urge to roll her eyes. “I'm not going to help you Rowena, because in case you forgot you’re not allowed to rule outside of South, that was the deal. Not to mention the fact that you just kidnapped me.”

“You hunters and your damn one track minds,” the witch muttered. “I’m very aware of the deal I made with your Daddies’ thank you very much.”

“Then why are we talking about this, and why am I here?” Claire was honestly getting fed up with this, she could only deal with Rowena on a good day, which today was not, and hearing her drone on about West was exhausting. She should be done with that now that the damn West Witch is dead.

“Surely you or your aunties have noticed that West is falling apart? Do they not realize that without a witch to control it, it will continue to crumble. It's unlivable now, it will only get worse; disease, pestilence, monsters. Someone could even take control of the castle for their own gain. We need a reliable witch there to keep everything balanced.”

Claire hated to agree with her, but she was helping Dorothy for the last few weeks and she had seen the ruins of West for herself. West was falling and it made the most sense that a witch at power in the castle was what would save it, as the absence of the previous witch caused the current problems.

“Say I believe you,” Claire started, “And you say it’s not going to be you, because it can’t be, so what lucky witch do you say should deal with the crap show that is West.”

Rowena gave her a look that said it should be obvious, before replying, “Why Love, you of course.”


	4. Sam

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: I will post on Sundays  
> Also Me: Posts at 11:56pm Sunday
> 
> Thanks to my beta and anyone who has read this

“Heya, Sammy.”

Sam’s instincts told him to freeze. His training told him to attack. His head told him to hug his brother.

It was an overwhelming moment.

He was suddenly aware that he was no longer sitting and that Charlie was staring at him; an eyebrow rose as if daring him to do something stupid. 

A hand clamped down on his shoulder, Dean’s hand, pushing down slightly. 

“Why don’t you just take a seat, we’ll… talk.” Dean's voice was deeper, and Sam was pretty sure he had more of a southern twang to it now.

Sam moved robotically back into the chair, he wasn’t sure when his body decided to start taking orders from Dean, Sam never let Dean boss him around even as a teenager, but here they are. After a moment Dean walked around to Charlie’s side of the table.

Dean was still, well, Dean. He swapped out their dad's old leather jacket for a flannel, and he looked minutely older, but he was still undeniably the older brother Sam remembers. He was twisting his gun around in one hand, his eyes were scanning the room while he had a cocky smirk on his face like the room wasn’t difficult enough for him, which Sam supposes is true considering how easily Dean broke in.

Dean looked different. Not physically though, he just seemed to hold himself higher than before, there was more certainty to all of his actions. It wasn’t the egotistic posturing he pulled in front of their dad as teens to make himself seem more manly. For once he was comfortable in his own skin, and Sam wanted to know how that happened after Dean abandoned his home and his family.

Dean was scratching the warding off of Charlie’s cuffs by the time Sam’s mouth caught up to his brain. “What, Dean? Wait, how? What?”

“Eloquent as always Sammy,” Dean said teasingly, but his face showed no hint of a smile that usually accompanied it.

“Why are you here Dean,” Sam asked, knowing he sounded like a moody teenager, but the adult portion of his brain wasn’t used to putting up with Dean’s shit.

Dean snorted and Charlie looked at him slack jawed, like he was the one without all of his brain cells intact; considering he wasn’t the one to break into a high tech, greater than military fortified, bunker, he knew he wasn’t.

“Well Sam,” Some part of Sam cringed when Dean acknowledged him with his actual name, “I figured that was the obvious portion of this mission. No other questions for us with that Stanford brain of yours?”

Right, Stanford, Sam remembers the night Dean broke into his and Jess’ apartment. The last time he saw his brother, Dean was different; Dean never tried to force Sam to do anything he didn’t want to do, but Dean was the good soldier. Dean was the good soldier, his father’s perfect son, the proper Legacy; good at killing and knew enough to not get dead. Dean leaving was one of the most surprising things that had happened in Sam’s life, but he understood why now.

Dean was selfish; Dad always put a lot of pressure on him to be the next John, but Dean was good at putting on a facade. John didn’t know about Dean’s flippant attitude and avoidance of responsibilities until it was too late to help him. Before it was too late.

“How’d you even get in here?” It wasn’t what Sam wanted to ask, he wanted to ask how Dean was still alive. Before this Sam assumed that Dean just knocked up the first pretty girl he saw and was living out the apple pie life he tried to get Sam to want as a kid. Because, once again, Dean is the type of person to do that instead of protecting people like the Men of Letters.

“It’s not that hard to get in once you know how.” He answered Sam the same way he always did when Sam was younger; a half truth, only partially answering the question Sam asked.

“And how exactly is that?” Anger was seeping into his tone, but he forgot to care, this may be Dean but it’s also a fugitive. Someone who deserted the organization and later broke in to break a prisoner out.

Dean’s face broke into a sneer, but Charlie cut him off before he could respond, “Sam, you should realize that we’re not going to tell you that, leaving was the biggest risk either of us took on. Why would we ever endanger some other kid when they have the opportunity to be free.”

“It wasn’t a risk, you both left because you wanted to.”

“Is that what you think of me Sammy?” The desperation in Dean’s eyes was enough for Sam to want to take back his previous statement, but it was true, they left of their own free will. The Men of Letters is a family and they abandoned theirs. “You really think I wanted to leave you, that I came to Stanford to what? Rub it in your face? What the hell, Sam.”

“I know you don’t handle responsibility well Dean, you’re better at taking orders than giving them and all that, but you took the first opportunity you had to cut and run. So, yeah that is what I think of you.”

Dean had his head bowed, he was still behind Charlie’s chair, hands gripping the corners of it. His knuckles were turning white and Sam could see Charlie purposefully sit a little straighter in her chair as if blocking Sam’s view of Dean.

It was Charlie that answered not Dean, “That wasn’t his first chance of leaving.” 

“What?”

“Dean could’ve left at any time, he knew how, but he didn’t.” There was an anger in Charlie’s eyes that didn’t fit her. 

Dean flinched but didn’t add anything to her statement.

“Why did he stay then, he was happy here, why did he leave?”

Dean laughed mirthlessly, “You honestly think I was happy in this hell hole Sammy? You think I liked being Dad’s little toy soldier, as you loved reminding me I was? I stayed because of you, until you decided Stanford was better than your damn family”

Was Dean happy? He put a smile on his face in front of others, but sometimes when he thought no one was looking he let the smile fall. And this new Dean, the one without their dad's jacket or obedient attitude, Sam could tell he was happy with the wrinkles around his eyes and the happy looks he and Charlie shared when he first walked in. But he had no definitive answer on if the old Dean was actually happy.

Dean always said Sam was the best thing in the bunker, but he always thought Dean was only being a good big brother, but then he started to drift away from Sam. Or did Sam just push Dean away like he pushed everyone away at that age.

“I- I don’t know,” Sam answered truthfully.

“Of course you don’t,” Dean said quietly. Then louder, “You were too caught up in trying to be your own person and trying to do anything you could do against Mom and Dad that you forgot not everyone has the luxury of being themselves here.”

Maybe Dean was right about Sam, but he learned from his time at Stanford that the people around him were right about the outside world being primitive and money driven. Sam came back to his home after a few less than stellar choices, so could Dean and Charlie.

“So what? You didn’t want to be a guard, you could have been a doctor or a researcher. Well you still can, you can come back Dean.”

This could work, Dean could just tell Sam why he wanted to leave in the first place and they could find him something within the organization. He could go to Oz if he wanted to fight more, he could travel between Bunkers across the U.S. if he wanted to drive the Impala around.

“Thanks for extending that gracious offer to both of us Sam,” Charlie said sarcastically, “But we don’t want to be here any more than when we left.”

“Can’t you see how selfish that is though? I mean, maybe this place isn’t the best but we save people and stop threats most people don’t even know are there!”

Dean laughs darkly, “You honestly think these people want to save anyone. I thought you would have at least figured that much out by now. You guys know jack about hunting monsters, but you know plenty about controlling them.”

Deciding to ignore Dean’s opinions on the Men of Letters methods, Sam asked, “So is that what you’re doing now, hunting? Was running not good enough that you had to go join those buffoons.”

“Yeah Sammy, we’re hunters, damn good ones too. You’d be hard pressed to find any decent monster that hasn’t heard the name ‘Winchester’ and that has nothing to do with Mom and Dad. You people don’t hunt monsters, you kill them systematically whether they hurt anyone or not.”

Was Dean naive enough to think hunters made a difference, they were a bunch of old guys that decided to see how many vamps it would take before they all ended up dead. Hunters didn't have access to half of the weapons the Men of Letters did and they had no system of authority, it was all kill or be killed.

“There is no such thing as a good monster Dean. If you’re a hunter you should know that.”

“I am a hunter, and that’s how I know just how wrong you are. One of my best friends is a vampire, I call a dreamwalker family, and another used to be a lure for a vampire nest. Not to mention Garth, just about the nicest guy I’ve ever met, just happens to be a werewolf.”

Before Sam could try and comprehend any of that Charlie piped up. “My girlfriend’s a witch,” She said staring him right in the eye as she did.

“Um,” Was all Sam could say.

“What parts holding you up,” She challenged, “The witch part or the part where I like chicks?”

“You lived in California Sam, and maybe it was with your Hollywood perfect girlfriend, but you should’ve picked up on how not to be a dick,” Dean said harshly.

And Sam did live in California, he was probably one of the more accepting Men of Letters, but it’s not like only of them really have a problem with that. Sam said as much to Dean and Charlie.

“Why do you think I left Sam, I was 13, it wasn’t about the unlawful killings of innocents for me, I didn’t even know about them at the time. I left because the wrong people here learned about my lesbianism and were going to do something about it.”

He almost asked what she meant before he realized, a sick feeling in his gut swelled up. “How could someone do that to you, you were just a kid?”

Charlie’s expression hadn’t changed most of the conversation, and Dean was still holding himself up on her chair, staring at the broken cuffs beside her before checking the time on his phone. 

“I wasn’t a kid, I was an abomination, just like any monster. If they couldn’t ‘fix’ me they would have killed me. Lest I infect someone else with my homosexuality.” 

Sam’s voice caught in his throat, what could he possibly say to that.

“If they knew about it how come none of us ever did?” Was all me could bring himself to ask.

“So they didn’t have their reputation ruined, I mean I already escaped, which looked bad for them. So hiding the gay thing was something they considered a smart plan.”

“I can’t believe that, I mean this isn’t the sixties anymore.”

“Yeah and this isn’t the Salem witch trials, yet you keep kidnapping innocent witches from Oz.” Dean said, checking his watch again.

“Witches are bad Dean! All monsters are bad, you knew that once,” Sam tried to reason.

“Yeah, and I had to spend a very long time unlearning it.” Dean showed Charlie the time on his watch. “I suggest you start paying more attention to what’s happening around you.”

“Dean you can’t honestly think I believe any of that.”

“I’m not asking you to just blindly believe what I’m saying, that’s what the Men of Letters do, not me. All I want is for you to pay attention to what’s happening around you.”

“Well what’s happening around me is you keep checking your watch. You got somewheres to be Dean?”

That seemed to surprise the two of them; Sam sat us a little straighter in his chair, showing dominance because Dean may have gotten in but they weren’t leaving that easily.

“Yeah Sam,” He looked down at Charlie, who nodded, before stepping out from behind the chair, “We’re all done here.”

Sam almost laughed, standing up as well, “You can’t honestly think I’m just going to let you walk out of here. ‘Cause Rowena or not Charlie has information for us; she also admitted to having relations with a supernatural being.”

“For your information Sam, she’s more human than some of my other bedmates,” Charlie said, standing up, “And we will be leaving.”

Dean, who was now within arms reach of Sam, looked at the doorway to the room, where a set of footsteps were now entering. Before Sam could get his hopes up that it was someone coming to help him, Dean asked, “You got enough juice left to zap Sammy, Cas?”

What were they going to do to him?

The intruder to the room answered with the affirmative but didn’t move any closer. Charlie was suddenly in Sam’s personal space wrapping her arms around him. One hand pulling slightly on the back of his belt.

When she was on her toes, her mouth right beside his face she whispered, “We believe in you Sam, when you figure it out we’ll help you.”

Then Charlie was gone. Her soft footsteps entered the hall.

“This doesn’t have to be goodbye if you don’t want it to be, my offer from that night still stands”

Dean was subtle, probably because of the camera in the room, but Sam knew what he was talking about. Dean had visited Sam at Stanford during his second year, back when he and Jess lived in a small apartment together. He offered to help Sam ‘escape’ the Men of Letters, and protect him. Sam honestly thought Dean was drunk, he spent quite a lot of time drinking before Sam left for college. He declined obviously, and he stood by that now. 

“You don’t abandon family Dean, so I’m not leaving. It’d be good for you to come back to your family, we’d be happy to be all together again,” Sam said slowly, as if to not scare Dean away.

Dean’s face was empty of all emotion when he responded, “Family don’t end in blood, Sammy, it don’t start there either. I’m going back to my family, ‘cause I’m not sure you guys ever were it.”

Dean turned towards the door, so Sam did as well. The dude who entered earlier was about Dean’s height, paying no mind to Sam as he was staring at Dean.

“Goodbye Sammy, I hope you figure all of this out, at least your own sake.” Dean met the other guy’s gaze, “All good.”

And the world went black.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

When Sam woke, he was very much not in a dungeon interrogation room. In fact, he was in a hospital bed. He wasn’t injured or sore, just tired.

He slowly sat up, the only other person in the room seemed to be a guard whose name Sam couldn’t place; who was passed out in a bed a few over from Sam.

His brain was scrambling to remember what happened.

Witch. Charlie. Dean. Good monsters. Black.

While he tried to reconcile what Dean and Charlie had said about good monsters, Garth was alive, which he supposed was overall a good thing, he thought of all the ‘bad’ monsters he had dealt with. Other than the one hunt Sam went on, the only contact he had with monsters was when they were being interrogated, and with Charlie being the exception he had never directly spoken to any of them. Most of his knowledge came from books and other members’ stories.

Was it possible that there are ‘good’ monsters? They were good and bad people after all. The argument for biology didn’t even make much of a difference; while vampires and the like did have a need to feed, being like witches and dreamwalkers were almost fully human. Where did it say supernatural powers equal evil?

Dean and Charlie had stressed him figuring something out, what was he supposed to figure out? The good and bad monster thing?

He was going to need a little more proof before he believed that, but he was already on his way there.

He stared down at his lap, twisting his hands together because his phone didn’t appear to be close by. His eyes stalled on his belt for a moment too long. He thought back to Charlie’s goodbye hug; the light tug on his belt.

Deciding no idea was too stupid he reached a hand around to the back of his belt. 

He pulled his hand back in front of him with a small piece of paper between his fingers.

Ask what happened to Sully, was neatly written across it.

Before Sam could digest that, a thud from the hallway shocked him and he shoved the paper into his back pocket.

“You’re awake,” His father said gruffly, entering the room.

Sam was hesitant to answer, seeing as he was sitting up and his father looked like he wanted one, he responded, “Yeah.”

“That damned brother of yours, just coming in here wreaking havoc like he never aged in the past decade. Wait until Mary hears that Dean broke Rowena outta here.”

Right. Cameras in the bunker are old, they don’t record sound, at least not the ones in the dungeon.

Before he could add anything John continued, “Now they’ve gotta try and surround the South Castle and wait for her to try and get back inside. More dangerous now with her knowing we’re there and everything.”

“You think our people will be attacked by her when she tries to re-enter the castle?” Sam questioned.

John sunk down into a chair at the foot of Sam’s bed. “What, now I’ve got one son rescuing witches and the other turns dumb as rocks?”

“Dean didn’t save any witches, at least not that I know of.” John opened his mouth to protest but Sam continued, “That wasn’t a witch, that was Celeste Middleton.”

“Celeste is dead, she died over two decades ago.”

“You and I both know she didn’t,” Sam challenged, “She ran ‘cause y’all didn’t like her being a lesbian.”

John visibly flinched at the word, like te gay-ness would hurt him or something. “We tried everything we could to save Celeste but she was too set in her ways, she ran because she was too cowardly to fight her urges.”

“She was 13 Dad! She didn’t have urges, she had crushes.” Sam honestly couldn’t believe, even with Charlie and Dean’s warning, that his own father could be this homophobic. He knew the Men of Letters were not particularly fond of LGBT+ people but to actually scare a pre-teen out of her home was too far.

“All the more reason she could have controlled it, Samuel.”

Panic started to crawl up Sam’s back as he asked in a very quiet voice, “What would you have done if she didn’t run?”

John considered this, like he was deciding what to make for dinner, he gazed thoughtfully at the corner of the bed. “I suppose we would have just given her the ultimatum of fix herself or leave, and if that didn’t work there is probably a spell somewhere that would’ve done it.” John seemed proud of himself for concluding this.

Sam felt sick, he had been so utterly, completely, moronically wrong about the Men of Letters’ opinions on that, how wrong was he about other things.

“So you would have used magic to control her?” John nodded. “Like a witch would? You would use a spell to force her to do something against her will, and you see nothing wrong with that?” Sam wasn’t loud but his voice had a dangerous tone in it.

“Sam,” John said in the voice that meant he was going to try and reason with Sam like he was twelve years old again, “We wouldn’t be harming Celeste, we would have been helping her.”

“So when you do magic to ‘help’ people it’s okay, but if a witch did any magic they deserve to die?” Maybe Sam had been ignoring a lot of the flaws in their organization until Dean and Charlie pointed them out to him.

“What are you talking about Sam? All witches are dangerous, we can’t just let them live unchecked,” John said with conviction.

The piece of paper was burning a hole in Sam’s back pocket. Sully was his imaginary friend from when he was really young, well when he was younger, that suddenly disappeared one day. Which was weird considering he was just a figure of Sam’s imagination that suddenly one day he just couldn’t reimagine him.

The week following had been an odd week. Senior Members kept looking at him with pity, Linda Tran even asked if he was doing okay more than once. His parents were smiling and happy the whole time, and they kept trying to get him to research something that Sam can no longer remember the name of, he did eventually look it up but there wasn’t much information to look at and he was too sad and confused to care. 

But Dean was the worst, he avoided Sam all week, leaving a room more than once when Sam entered, it didn’t help that Charlie left not long after and Dean came back to Sam way less Dean than before.

“Dad,” No part of him wanted to ask, but he had to. “What happened to my imaginary friend Sully.” Some parts of him cringed at being an almost thirty year old talking about his imaginary friend.

“You remember me and your mother having you look up Zanna?”

Sam’s brain was slowly frying itself but it supplied the answer before Sam could realize what he was saying. “Yeah, they guide and protect kids, or something. But you can’t really see them only kids-”

Only kids can see Zanna.

Just like kids can only see imaginary friends.

“What happened to Sully?” His voice was anger and caution for his dad to not say what he was about to say.

Knowing John, he did anyways, “Your mother and I got rid of the monster that was following you around, you should be happy. He was controlling you, keeping you from being a proper Legacy.” 

It took everything in Sam not to jump out of the bed and punch John in his smug face, he honestly didn’t think his father could say anything any more moronic than that, before, “We even gave your brother the honor of burning the body.” 

Happy. Proper. Honor.

That’s why Dean avoided him for a week. That’s why Dean never left with Charlie. That’s why Dean stayed. He stayed to protect Sam, and Sam shoved it all back in his face that night at Stanford.

Reality of everything around him was starting to finally set in on Sam, what he’d done, what his friends and family had done, what the Men of Letters as an organization had done over the years because of their belief that all monsters are inherently evil.

After several minutes of silence, John left. Presumably thinking Sam agreed with his methods without thinking. But Sam was doing a lot of thinking.

Thinking about finding the only member of his family he could trust; his brother.


	5. Dean

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote most of this when I was half asleep, even though it was mid afternoon when I wrote it.

The drive away from the bunker had thus far been silent, with only the sounds of Led Zeppelin's ‘Whole Lotta Love’ whispering over the tires on asphalt breaking it. 

Charlie was sitting on the passenger side, cross legged and her whole body turned towards him; seat belt unused and giving him a look somewheres between ‘you’re a moron’ and ‘I want to hug you for that’, both of which were common expressions for her. Cas and Jody were in the back with Kaia between them; the back of the Impala wasn’t really meant for three adults, well two adults and one almost adult, to fit in it but they made it work.

Dean honestly wished it was Cas beside him, even just to hold Dean’s hand while he drove. Charlie, whilst fond of hugs, wasn’t one for casual physical contact. According to Donna and Jody it had something to do with a lack of physical affection from loved ones growing up; Dean, who was given a similar amount of affection, went to the complete other side of the spectrum with a long string of one night stands until he let people close enough to constantly have the touch he desired so much.

It also culminated in him being a total cuddle slut, but that stayed between him and Cas.

He continued down the road away from what was once his home; mid afternoon as it had been last time, still with the Impala he jacked during his first escape. Last time it was just him, running away from all he knew after one last hug from a woman he considered more of a mother to him than his own. He owed Linda everything for giving him the family that filled his beloved car this time.

Dean caught Cas’ eyes in the rear view mirror, smiling slightly despite himself, before he lightly pressed the brake pedal. If anybody wanted to object when he turned towards Lebanon instead of towards the highway, they did so silently.

They drove through town slowly, one of the few times Dean abided by the speed limit. The memories for him, and Charlie, were more nostalgic than at the bunker. The bunker was where they trained, where they learned to be the mindless drones that followed the Men of Letters, killing and catching whomever they were told to. 

Here in the town of Lebanon, however, this was the elementary school all Legacies attended until normal people started high school, whereas they started their proper education on monsters, lore, and other aspects of the occult. He and Charlie were the rulers of the nerd world back then; Charlie could use a computer with more efficiency and tack than the average professional and was a certifiable Harry Potter fanclub member, and Dean could quote Vonnegut almost back to front along with having an impressive knowledge of pop culture for someone who had very little free time to actually view it.

His favorite memories with his mother happened in this town, back when he was young and the Men of Letters were only just beginning to dig their claws into her. Bank when he could see joy in her eyes not the stone cold hatred and decisiveness that haunted his sleep before he finally ran.

While he didn’t have what he would consider as good memories with his father, John always preferred Sam, most of what would be his favorite memories related to him all seemed to heavily involve the fact that his father _wasn’t there. ___

__Like when he would drive Sam and Kevin to and from that elementary school after he himself stopped attending. When Dean and Sam set off fireworks one evening after hiding out in the garage until everyone else was asleep or busy, just anytime Dean tried to teach Sam how to be a kid._ _

__Those memories were the best; just him and Sam, and his brothers’ incessant need to not be like their father was forgotten for a little while. There was a point in time, way back, when Sammy was just Sammy, a kid who liked to bury his nose in a book and follow Dean around when he thought Dean was cool for doing what he was forced to do; instead of thinking of his brother as a coward for just that reason._ _

__~~~~~~~~~~~~~~_ _

__When they reached the motel, the first one listed in the phone book, Charlie and Dean went up to the front desk to pay for two motel rooms for a couple of nights. Charlie most likely knew why they were staying instead of heading right back and opted for silence, even if it kept them from Claire for a bit longer. It could also get them closer to her._ _

__The Men of Letters had Charlie, while they know they don’t have Claire, they were probably the best lead they had to her location. If that meant sticking around bumfuck Kansas for a couple days, while Dorothy, Donna, and Alex searched on the Oz front, to wait and see if somebody remembered a code from their childhood then so be it._ _

__Dean took to standing a little closer to Charlie than he usually would as he introduced them as Jim Rockford and his wife Abbey. They were five people going to be divided between four beds and heteronormativity dictated that it be one man and one woman sharing as opposed to needing to wash the gayness out of their bedding after they left._ _

__No matter what they led the motel desk attendant to believe they were a weird group either way. To the guy they were two men and a woman in their thirties, two of which are married, an older woman, and a teenaged girl. To themselves they were a gay couple, involving an angel, two lesbians, one of which being a dream walker and the other the ruler of a place that should only exist in stories, and a widower who has adopted a good chunk of the young hunting community._ _

__Charlie ended up drawing the short straw and followed Dean and Cas into one of the rooms. Cas and Charlie shared a look before the angel placed a kiss on Dean’s lips and announced he was going to help Kaia and Jody unpack._ _

__Charlie eyed him as he habitually unpacked his duffle, she sat cross legged on her bed facing his. “Dean,” She started, pointedly looking at the bed in front of her and he got the message._ _

__Sitting put him at eye level with his little sister, which was a terrifying experience for most but it was worse for him. He suspected that he was the only one, possibly barring Dorothy, that understood the full force that was Charlie Bradbury._ _

__“We don’t have to do this now Charles,” He stated weakly, knowing fully well that he had no choice in the matter._ _

__She was staring at his shoulder, which was just unsettling, when she spoke up again, “I know I left a long time ago Dean, but what happened to little Sammy that just wanted to help people? Where did this conceited cold blooded killer come from? I mean, we knew about Garth, but I had always hoped that was a fluke.”_ _

__“They broke him Charlie, I watched it happen to Mom. Going from a caring mother that just wanted her kids safe to some power hungry tyrant with a bloodlust for anything she deemed unworthy. Sam was changing even when I was there, but he went to Stanford; he even switched to Pre-Law, he was out, then something dragged him back in._ _

__“Back before the Angels fell and Angel Radio crapped out, Linda would send Cas updated on Sam. When he first went back he just cared about leaving behind his college days and buried himself in books, eventually he just morphed himself into John Junior.”_ _

__She looked at him sadly, “You know it isn’t your fault right?”_ _

__“I know,” Dean hung his head. “It’s just hard not too. I mean we had our parents but they were always too busy to really raise us; Dad was the good Legacy and whatever monster of the week to precedence over his kids, and Mom used to be there but the picture I have of her when I was little as being this kind and superhuman mother, that's just a lie._ _

__“I took care of Sammy, I kept the bad shit away from him ‘cause he was just a kid. I took his side no matter what, even if he couldn’t see me doing it. But he started to push me away because I was this emotionless killer to him, he even went as far as to tell me just how weak and dumb I was for always following Dad’s orders, like I had a choice in the matter.”_ _

__Somewheres during his speech Charlie migrated to beside him, wrapping her arms around him. He turned his head and pressed his face into her soft hair. Tears drifted down his face, he silently cried, unable to even form more than a few tears due to the concept of manliness that was drilled into him from a young age._ _

__“Should I get the other’s?” Charlie whispered after a few minutes of silence. She had a couple tears on her face when she pulled away after Dean nodded._ _

__A minute later they were all back in one room; Jody sitting on the desk chair at the foot of Charlie’s bed which Charlie and Kaia were cross legged on top of. Cas was sitting on the edge of the bed beside Dean, who was leaning on the Angel._ _

__Nobody spoke for a moment before Jody was willing to ask what exactly went down in the dungeon._ _

__“We ran into my dad, but that wasn’t anything unusual; just him telling me how much of a coward I am and how far I’ve fallen from being his little prodigy.” He paused for a moment, letting Cas rub a hand up and down his back, before continuing in a softer voice, “Then I got in the interrogation room and it was Sam in there with Charlie.”_ _

__Jody and Kaia only knew bits and pieces about the elusive younger Winchester, just that Dean tried above all else to help his brother stray from the path their father wanted for him. They also know that Dean feels the guilt for not doing enough to help Sam leave everyday, even though they remind him just how much he does for everyone else just as much._ _

__He has come a long way from the emotionally constipated and brash barely legal adult he was when he first left the Men of Letters over a decade ago to being the heart of a large group of hunters and supernatural beings that is known for being both loving and deadly._ _

__They try not to but the curiosity on Jody and Kaia’s faces betray them. Dean begins his explanation, telling them more about his past in one go than he had when he broke down in Cas’ arms after Charlie linked her soul to Lucifer’s and pulled him into the pit and Dean told him everything. They didn’t exactly start their romantic relationship then, but Dean stopped picking up people from bars and Cas became less of a weapon for heaven._ _

__Things progressed from there, Cas kissed him in purgatory before shoving Dean through the portal, Dean said ‘I love you’ for the first time to break Cas out of Naiome’s control in Lucifer's Crypt, and they basically adopted Claire after that._ _

__Dean continues to outline his childhood with as much honesty and detail as he could bring himself to do._ _

__He told them about the long stretches of time as a kid when the senior members would be on mission and the only adult left didn’t care about the dozen or so minors that were still in the bunker._ _

__He told them about being taught how to load and shoot a gun before he knew his times tables._ _

__He told them about his father drilling into his head that monsters had to die and he had to kill them even if they looked human._ _

__He told them about Sam being a little kid that wanted to save everyone._ _

__He told them about Sam going to college and actively disobeying their father to become a lawyer to help those who were falsely convicted of crimes a supernatural creature committed._ _

__He told them about John finally breaking Dean enough that he took the Impala and left with only a quick goodbye to Linda._ _

__He told them about the night he visited Sam at Stanford, with Sam accusing him of being a drunk who only cared about himself; telling him just how much he hated Dean for trying to act like Sam’s dad as a kid._ _

__He told them about Charlie contacting him after having seen Dean while she was monitoring (stalking) Sam at college._ _

__No one really had much to say after that. Speeches about shitty childhoods and the like always led to awkward silences and pitying glances. This was different through; they stayed silent reflectively. They all had their own shit to think over and they were lucky enough to be able to do it together._ _

__~~~~~~~~~~~~~_ _

__Dorothy tried to explain scrying to Dean once, and only once. Dean’s dislike for witches still existed but it was more so a disgust for whichever ingredient he really didn’t want to know about, and his condolences for the rabbit that got the shaft in the deal. After his time in Oz he learned to not be so biased against natural witches, which more witches in Oz are, because they mostly use non organic tools for their magic; gems, amulets, herbs and spellswords._ _

__Still, whether he knew what was happening, he sort of did, or not Charlie still looked minorly psychotic sitting on the floor of the motel room in front of the bathroom where there was the most floor space. She had the small clear prism on a chain around her neck held up in front of her face. She was muttering the scrying spell _‘Ostende mihi illum quem quaero’ _backwards to basically broadcast her location to one person, or to one Dorothy.___ _

____The prism filled with a pale blue smoke before a voice behind them whispered, “Char?”_ _ _ _

____The five physical occupants in the room all jumped as they turned towards the astral projection of Dorothy. Astral projection is when a witch sends their consciousness to another location, even a different realm so long as you know their exact location, and creates the likeness of a physical body in order to communicate. She looked solid enough but if the light hit her correctly you could easily see that she is not actually in the room._ _ _ _

____“Dot,” Charlie called back standing._ _ _ _

____Dorothy smiled at her, relief obvious on her face. “I’m glad they got you out, how are you? Being back there must have been hard.”_ _ _ _

____“I’m fine actually, I’ve grown a lot since I was there. And we’ve got bigger fish to fry, like the location of my _darling niece? _”___ _ _ _

______Dean suppressed a laugh as Dot’s face turned to a scowl. “How Winchester of you,” She muttered. “You can’t even sit for a minute after your own kidnapping, you just have to dive right into the next dangerous situation,” She said louder._ _ _ _ _ _

______Maybe it was unfair of Dean to want to laugh at the exchange, and probably inappropriate considering the missingness of his child, but Claire is strong enough to hold her own for a bit and the little speech Dorothy was giving reminded Dean of the one Cas gave him after every self-sacrificing move he made. The light swat on the back of Dean’s head told him that Cas noticed it as well._ _ _ _ _ _

______“Exactly,” Charlie piped up. “It’s a Winchester thing; we look out for our own more than ourselves that’s why we need so many of us. Now _do _you have an update on Claire?”___ _ _ _ _ _

________Dot poorly disguised the roll of her eyes before continuing, “No update on Claire as of right now, we found the owner of the tea shop she was last seen entering. Her name is Madam Ira.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“Claire’s mentioned her before, she and Claire talk a lot when Claire visits,” Kaia interrupts._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“She said that,” Dorothy says with a vague gesture of acknowledgement in Kaia's direction. “Madam Ira said that Claire arrived shortly after noon time and left when the shop closed in the early afternoon.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________Dean raised an eyebrow at the amount of time his daughter spent with a woman Dean has only heard her mention a few times._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“Did she notice anything when Claire left? Afterwards?” Jody asked being the most level headed to ask questions under duress._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“Nothing, but nobody else in town even noticed her as far as we can tell, it was a harvest day so there weren't many about town. We’re still looking for leads on how somebody may have gotten her.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________How, not if somebody had her, just how they did it. Someone kidnapped his daughter and they were going to pay._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“We also found another problem,” Dorothy continued, because the situation wasn’t bad enough already. “West is… dying, for lack of a better word.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________Some small part of Dean, the part that was enjoying not taking as many cases and only helping when needed, cringed. When Charlie killed the West Witch and the other things they did to return Oz to peace had lasted longer than Dean originally anticipated, barring the Men of Letters being dicks of course, but hearing that it was starting to fall apart still hurt._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________Dea took a deep breath before asking, “What exactly is happening in West right now?”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“The forest is dying, animals and monsters that usually don’t migrate are moving towards the border, and we caught a case of Nar sickness in the closest populated town to the castle.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________Most of the citizens that lived in West during the reign of the former witch were forced to move away from the castle to town along the border or even past it due to an old folk monster living in the witches area of the forest that caused an illness similar to whooping cough in people in its general vicinity. It was easily curable but people still ended up sick for several days no matter when they took the medication to stop it._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“I thought Julian led the mission to execute all of the Nar?” Jody spoke up._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“He did but they seem to just be back, there is no way one was even hibernating or hiding until now, this just appeared into existence.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“Not that that isn’t very concerning,” Dean said, “But let's keep Claire as our top priority before we start going after something else.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________Everyone agreed verbally or with a nod before saying their goodbyes to Dot, who was already starting to fade. Jody and Kaia left after that, and they all got some much needed rest._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________~~~~~~~~~~~~_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“Hello Dean.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________As quiet as he might be, Cas was no longer able to sneak up on Dean, not even in the early mornings like these. He smiles at his angel while leaning against the Impala._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“What’s up Cas?” Dean said, loving the little smirk Cas wore every time Dean said his name with a little extra twang._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________Cas handed Dean a mug. Dean brought it up to smell it; warm cafa tea as he suspected, but Cas only made him drink it after stressful hunts or when Dean was being asked to parent. Dean used his free hand to intertwine his fingers with his boyfriend’s, raising an eyebrow expectantly._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________Cas just looked back at their motel room door. Dean followed his gaze to see Kaia standing outside of it, arms crossed and looking like she wanted to fold into herself._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________He sighed, turning back to Cas. “What do you need me to do?”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“Claire is missing, you need to help her realize that she’ll be okay.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“But we don’t know if Claire is going to be okay.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________Cas gave him a look, “Not Claire, you need to tell Kaia that she will be okay no matter what happens.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“How am I supposed to be able to help with that Cas?” He asked quietly. “She’s just a kid, I can’t exactly relate that much to her.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“You know a thing or two about losing someone you love, you can just be there for her if that's all you can do.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“Losing the love of your life,” Dean laughed self-deprecating, “Not exactly the best thing to bond over.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________Memories flashed across Dean’s mind. Of Metatron telling him Cas was tortured and going to die. Of Cas pushing him through the portal out of purgatory. Of Cas going into the reservoir. Even as far back as seeing Cas exploded by Lucifer._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“I’ll do it,” Dean conceded. “Just don’t remind me of those times again, please?” His voice was edging on the side of broken, but he really didn’t want to connect some of the worst times of his life, anytime Cas was dead, to what might happen to Kaia if Claire didn’t make it. He understood why he had to though, he wasn’t going to let this break Kaia so he had to let her know he could help._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________Cas nodded and gave him a sad smile. They sat there for a minute, reminding each other that, for the time being, they were both alive. Alive and together._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________~~~~~~~~~~~~~~_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________Dean followed Kaia into the room. She had her own mug of tea now, presumably from Charlie or Jody. She set down the mug without taking a drink and sat on the edge of one of the beds. Dean also set his mug down and sat beside her, with an arm around her shoulder._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________After a moment she finally asked, “What if all of this is making me want a fix?”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________He chuckled softly, but it wasn’t directed at her. “Then I’d say that’s perfectly reasonable, I’ve been craving whiskey since Dorothy first showed up.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________She pulled her gaze from the tea to him, sighing. “We should drink our tea then.” She returned to staring at the mug, but neither of them made an attempt to actually reach theirs_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“She’s gonna be fine right?” Kaia’s voice was watery and cracked in the middle of her sentence._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“We’re going to do everything we can to make sure we do that, just like she would for any of us,” He answered honestly._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________After a few more moments of silence Kaia spoke up again, voice barely above a whisper, “Does it ever get easier to go through this?”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________Neither of them needed to clarify what this she was referring to._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________He decided to answer honestly again, “No.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________She nodded slowly before turning her head and buried her face in his shoulder. A wet spot started to form but he didn’t comment; tears were running down his face as well. She might not be his kid, or even his pseudo kid really, but she was family and he would walk to the ends of the Earth for her._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________Neither moved for several minutes, it was easier to just silently hurt together than actually do something. Kaia eventually sat back up straight and Dean wiped away her tears. They each got their tea before returning back to their position, with Kaia securely under his arm._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________They each had about half of their tea by the time the knock sounded on the door. Dean stood, the mug was small to begin with and he didn’t have nearly as much as he usually did, but he still felt a light calm from the tea._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________He pulled the gun out from under his pillow and walked slowly to the door. He signaled for Kaia to go into the bathroom, once she was there he held the gun to the door and opened it._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“Hey Dean.” Standing in front of him was all 6 foot whatever of Sam Winchester._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _


	6. Claire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I spent over two hours looking up magic stuff on the spn wiki page... oops?
> 
> Italics are Scottish Gaelic terms  
> Bold is Latin
> 
> *UPDATE* Oct/18/20 In chapter five I changed it so everything after Dorothy's exit happens the day after Charlie's rescue.

Claire had been staring at the ceiling for the length of ‘A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out’ about seven or eight times in a row. Music and a few games were the only things that worked in the residual dead zone that is Oz. The mattress on the floor wasn’t terribly uncomfortable, but she figured that a witch with a whole castle should at least be able to provide a bed frame, or at least a memory foam mattress.

She tried yelling and bitching, and silence for about fifteen minutes, but Rowena hadn’t some back since she left Claire down there the day before. There had been two meals delivered since, based on the small window near the ceiling, at supper the previous day and breakfast today. Well, not delivered so much as appearing in her room (cell). 

It was almost noon so another meal should be coming sometime soon, Claire supposed.

She was about to hit reset on the album when an exasperated voice called out, “Oh please for the love of, not again. Deary, I love Brendon Urie but I cannot stomach to hear that played for a ninth time in a row.”

Without so much as acknowledging Rowena’s presence Claire clicked play and the introduction started playing.

“ _I’ll gie ye a skelpit lug!_ This part isn’t even a song.”

“It’s how you’re supposed to listen to it,” Claire said, hiding a smirk.

“Even back in my day performers had the decency to skip stuff like this,” Rowena muttered. “Now I’ve given you a day, and I am bloody aware that that is an insufficient amount of time for a Winchester to continue to be against someone purely out of stubbornness, but could you please help now and bitch later.”

“I’m not helping you Rowena, you have South. That was the deal.” Claire was sitting now, facing the witch.

“ _Eejit_ , this isn’t about me, that’s why I said you need to take it over. I have plenty of witches back on your side that would take the spot in a heartbeat and listen to anything I told them to do. But I chose you to do it, the last person in these worlds that would listen to anything I said. Well after Dean, I suppose, but he has the magical ability of a bairn.”

“I still don’t believe you,” Claire said with an ounce of hesitancy.

Rowena sighed loudly and disappeared in a flourish of lace dress.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Claire was halfway through ‘Camisado’ before Rowena returned. She was wearing the same long sleeved cobalt dress as before but her hair was pulled back into an elaborate bun and her makeup was done.

“Back so soon,” Claire snarked.

Rowena merely smiled before saying, “I apologize for the delay, _a chuilein_ , I needed some powdered lattrice.”

Claire blinked at her, “Okay…?”

“Well, now that that’s settled, we best be going.” Rowena tossed a set of gold bands at Claire.

“You are aware that handcuffs usually have chains, right? Or did you waste your fashion sense on your hair this morning.”

Rowena balled and released her fists. “Yes! You petulant child, I am aware of what handcuffs are from my many wearings of them when I used to work with your family. Those are magic cuffs, you can’t get more than a couple dozen feet away from me when you’re wearing them.”

“And why would I put these on?”

“If you want to leave here,” The witch gestured around the small dungeon room. “And, cuffs or not, you have a better chance of escaping if you leave the castle. Not that you will, mind you.”

Claire met Rowena’s gaze and slowly cliched the metal in place. “Where are you taking me?”

Rowena laughed, “You mean to tell me that you’ve been bitching about my intentions towards it and you can’t even remember where?”

“You’re taking me to West,” Claire supplied, dumbly.

“Yes, now come. We haven’t the time for idle chit chat. Nightfall will hit West in an hour's time, and the reawakened beasts will be walking then.”

Claire wanted to protest, or ask what she meant by beasts, but Rowena started to exit the room; using the door for once.

She caught up to Rowena quickly. The witch didn’t even look at her, just kept up the same brisk pace as they traveled down the hallway and up a set of stairs.

The room they entered was much larger than any in the castle Claire had seen previously, but she had only seen the one in the dungeon. It had high ceilings and was well lit, but that was all Claire could see before Rowena pulled her towards a side hallway.

Silently, Claire followed until she was pulled off the hall and into a… study, maybe. There was a wall covered in mirrors, shelves with jars of crystals and other prisms, and cauldrons and goblets stacked along another wall.

“Don’t mind the mess,” Rowena said dismissively, “I’ve been doing some reorganizing as of late.”

“I kind of thought you’d employ someone to do something like that,” Claire tried to say it jokingly but it came out a bit too harsh.

“No, I rather enjoy not having others around.” Rowena was silent for a moment, “And it keeps my busy between the complaints by those who cannot handle their perfect little world being inconvenienced for just a moment.”

Rowena made it sound as though the isolation was her choice, but Claire could tell she was lonely. The only outside interaction Claire was aware of her having was with the other Castle Witches, and those meetings only happened every few weeks.

“Well, come along then.” Rowena was now standing in front of a tall mirror that had several objects on a stand beside it.

“What are we doing?”

“These three mirrors-” Rowena indicated the mirror in front of her and two identical ones to Claire's right. “Are connected to our other castle’s, so all we have to do is tell it where in the West Castle we want to go and we will be there.”

Rowena spread something that looked quite a bit like orange glitter glue on the mirror and drew a circular sigil, before replacing the bowl in the stand, and grabbing a small vial. The witch said a few words quieter than Claire could here before indicating for her to walk through. The mirror still looked solid, there was no swirling or smoke visible, but Claire still easily walked through.

It was very unlike her teleportation journey to the castle the day prior. She wasn’t dizzy and she didn’t pass out; it was like walking through an, oddly warm, doorway.

Her eyes took a moment to readjust to the darkness. She was outside as far as she could tell, it was still day time based on the few bits of sunlight breaking through the overgrown foliage.

After hearing the snap of a stick beside her she looked to Rowena. “I thought you said we were going to the West Castle, ‘cause unless it got a major overhaul, this ain’t it.”

Rowena sighed softly, she had acquired a coat at some point and Claire was briefly jealous as the chilled winds zipped through her leather jacket. “It’s behind you. Honestly you hunter’s have no observational skills whatsoever.”

She wasn’t wrong, the West Castle was just to Claire’s left. She could only really see one section of grey brick wall and a high window though, the rest was either too dark or blocked by trees.

“So why are we here?”

“Must you be so daft, look around. _It’s black as the Earl of Hell’s Waistcoat._ ”

Upon further inspection, there were several falling and rotting trees, and a dead trihorn several yards away from them. The greenery around them was missing the sheen and usual vibrant color that existed all throughout Oz as part of the magical environment. It was also much colder here than anywhere else in Oz, especially for this warm time of year.

“West is dying,” She said slowly.

“Brilliant, now that you’ve caught up to the program, will you help me save it before it begins to crumble the rest of this realm.”

“I still don’t see what I can do. I’m not a witch, get one of your old contacts on my side to do it, that doesn’t violate your contract with my dad’s.”

“Very well then, I was hoping I wouldn’t have to show you this but you’ve left me no choice.”

Rowena silently grabbed the vial from her pocket, poured a drop of the glittery orange liquid onto both her hand and Claire’s. She then dropped the rest on the ground and muttered a few more words. Claire was close enough this time to make out some of them but she neither knew what the witch said nor if it was the same ones as earlier.

Going back to the castle was slightly more unsettling than leaving it; for one she wasn’t actually moving when it happened, so she suddenly just appeared in another place, and second, the portal caused a split second of cold, rather than warmth, that shook her to the core.

Before Claire could register that they were in a library, Rowena was placing a large book in front of her. “Open it,” She prompted.

“Why? What’s some book going to show me?”

Rowena’s eyes darkened, “One can learn much from the right book my dear, now open it.”

There was a light zap when she touched the book, like a small static shock. She peeled back the cover and opened it in the middle, roughly, she flipped the pages flat and looked back at the witch blankly.

“Well you needn’t dally, read it. Aloud if you must.”

Claire stared back down at the pages, her hand resting along the edge. “ _Daughter of an Angel’s Vessel and a Grigory’s Soul, protector to the human and the supernatural, family of many (The Vampire’s Lure, The Sheriff, The Mother, The Roadhouse Three, The Only Non-Idjit, The Profit, The Short Archangel, The Witch of the South {also on occasion}, The Witch of the North, The Witch of the East, and The Hacker), true love of The Dreamwalker, raised by The Fallen Angel and The Righteous Man-_ ”

“Continue, Love, it’s just getting to the good part,” Rowena said when she paused.

“ _-A natural witch powerful unlike any other, the successor to Riyta, the rightful witch to the throne of West, the thirty ninth to bear its power._

“ _Claire Marie Novak-Winchester._ ”

“See Dear, it’s all right there, if you don’t believe me try reading it after you remove your hand.”

Claire did so and the words melted into symbols she had never seen nor could read. “So this little read aloud was just a trick of some sort.”

“No, that was to prove that only people in the direct line of succession can read it. So your dear Charlie couldn’t, neither could Julien’s far less stoned sister.”

“Dorothy could though, why has she never mentioned this to me?”

“Dorothy has never seen this, neither has Julien. You’re the first I’ve shown it too; I only just found this the other day that I started rearranging things, while I was looking for my old copy of the ‘Book of Damnation’.”

“The ‘Book of the Damned’ is your favorite spell book. How did you lose it?”

“No Child, it's a different book; much older, much darker, a lot more seal’s blood though. Anyways, now you’ve read it, and you have a much nicer description than I do, they had a problem with me taking Lincoln to the theater, can you believe that? Something about him dying screwing up all of American history and leading to centuries of hate and poverty, or something. But you do understand now why I need it to be you, right? It has to be you.”

“But I’m not a witch,” Claire said with the last remnants of fight she had in her.

“Yer bum’s oot the windae!” Rowena said calmly. “Claire, I know you’ve done magic. You forget I and Dorothy actually get along quite well, considering the rest of you.”

Claire scoffed. “Yeah I’ve done little things; tracking and scrying spells maybe a hex bag that one time, but I’m not even sure it worked.”

“The scrying spell, how long did it take you to learn that?”

“Like a few hours, so I’m not some natural at this,” Claire tried to reason.

“Love, it took me over five days to teach that to Charlie, and Dorothy taught it to you in a matter of hours. Not to insult her, but I’ve been teaching magic for far longer than Dorothy’s been living, she’s not that good.”

“So that’s just one thing, doesn’t mean I’m a witch.”

Rowena sighed, “Do you really have that much of a built up hatred for our kind, or is this Dean ‘I Hate All Witches’ Winchester speaking?”

Was Rowena right about her being a witch? Claire always loved to be around Dorothy when she was doing magic, or practicing-

“She’s taught you more than just that hasn’t she?” Rowena asked pointedly.

Or when Dorothy took her into a library, not unlike the one she was currently in, to let her read and practice from old spell books.

“Yes.”

“How much more?”

“Enough.” Rowena shot her a look. “The same amount she’s taught Charlie.”

“In half the time?”

“Less than.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She followed Rowena deeper into the castle. Sure, her family was full of supernatural beings; Alex was briefly a vampire, Jody’s son was a zombie for a short minute, Bobby was a ghost for a bit before being resurrected, her girlfriend is actively a Dreamwalker. Hell one of her dads was an actual angel who was equivalent to a god for a bit and the other has been trying to get the monopoly on non-human statuses; vampire, archangel (vessel), became a ghost temporarily, Knight of Hell (demon), and a Jefferson Starship (why do they let him name things?). But she was a witch.

Her family was never very friendly with witches, but they didn’t hunt them unless someone died or was maimed, just like any other supernatural being. With the exception of a few, natural born witches that actively used their powers, those who didn’t obviously flew under the radar, were usually dickbags. Even the ones that used it for good, like that one charity witch that manipulated people into donating stuff; that was mental manipulation, quite literally, and she had to use a rabbit foot each time, so a lot of dead rabbits.

Rowena’s been good since she got here though. Therefore so could Claire, not that going dark side would ever push her family away (cough Demon Dean cough) it would just take a bit to get her back.

The real problem here was becoming a leader in a foreign realm before she’s even eighteen, by like two months. Would they freak out and try to take this away from her? Dean was the one she was most worried about; he had a protector complex that meant only he was allowed to take risks.

Claire wasn’t paying attention when Rowena stopped in front of a large door at the end of the hallway.

“Well what are you waiting for Love, open it.” Claire stepped forwards and tried the handle, failing to open it. “ _Yer aff yer heid. _You cannot honestly tell me that’s what you think I meant.”__

__Claire took a step back and lifted an arm, gold band still dangling there. “ ** _Aperiatur._** ” The door clicked and opened inwards._ _

__“Excellent Dear, now where to begin?”_ _

__Claire followed Rowena inside a large room with a silver pedestal in the center. Rowena walked to one side of the room and pulled something off of the wall._ _

__About ten feet away from her Rowena smiled. “Ready?” She asked._ _

__All Claire nodded before the steel knife flew out of Rowena’s hand towards her._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to my beta Vanty and my poor suffering search history after this.
> 
> See y'all next week.


	7. Sam

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the longest chapter yet, and this fic is way longer than I thought it was going to be. When I started, some people might have read it back then, but it was originally supposed to be 8 chapters. I keep having to up the amount because of my inability to guess how many words a plot point takes, but this is past the halfway point... I hope.
> 
> *UPDATE* You might have noticed Sam left the morning after Charlie was freed, and I did go back and make sure that lined up in Chapter 5, so not plot hole.
> 
> Also I was trying to avoid the flashback type thing, because that's always all or nothing for a fic, but I had to use it briefly cause I tried it another way but had to use it in one spot. There will only be the one though.

Not long after John left Sam sitting in the hospital room to head back into the bunker, the guard a few beds down woke up and left.

Sam was left alone in a thankless silence.

Memories assaulted him; Dean teaching him how to throw a football, Dean being the good soldier, Dean and Charlie helping him cut class to see a movie, Dean following their parents almost robotically, Dean choosing Sam over anyone.

Sam throwing it all back in his face at once.

_“Why do you care, Dean?” His younger self’s voice raged. “You’re just too selfish, everything’s about you doesn’t it. You just love all the attention you get don’t you? ‘Oh Dean’s such a good soldier,’ ‘You did a great job raising that one Mary,’ ‘Now if only little Sammy could just be more like him.’ Well guess what Dean, I’m not like you. I have a mind of my own and I intend to use it, unlike you.”_

_“Sammy, please-” Dean begged, but Sam was hearing none of it._

_“Get out Dean,” Dean looked like he wanted to protest more, but Sam continued, “No this is over, once I get back I think it’s best if we each just stay in our own lanes. I’ll do my job, and you can stand around waiting to be attacked everyday. Goodbye.”_

The sound of the door Sam had slammed rang through his ears for not the first time since Dean had visited that one faithful day at Stanford. Even then Sam regretted the choice he made, but he was angry and uncertain and he directed that at Dean for no reason other than that Dean was a part of the larger mess that was his childhood.

He was going to talk to Dean, to fix it, when he got back for college.

It should have been a dumb story they joked about in the library or teased each other about in the hallways.

That all changed when John called him six months after Dean's visit to tell Sam that after being missing for two years, they were ending the search and declaring his brother a deserter and usurping his membership; to be captured and detained if any other chapter found him. 

Sam hadn’t honestly been sure how to feel, Dean was a part of his childhood in more than a brotherly capacity, he was Sam’s best friend and parent rolled in as well. He knew Dean better than anyone else, just like Dean knew him better than anyone else. 

That’s what he thought at least. When he thinks back on it, that was the first time he ever realized that Dean might not have been as happy about their childhood as Sam thought.

Sam slowly moved into a proper sitting position, with his feet almost on the floor beside the bed. He twisted his back and neck until they cracked, not enough to alleviate the tightness he feels in them, but not completely unsatisfactory.

He stayed like that for several minutes before Ava knocked on the bedpost, pulling him out of his reverie. He blinked at her trying to clear the fog from his head, he hadn’t felt this unrested since pulling double all nighters back at Stanford.

“Are you feeling better?” Ava asks, with a somewhat forced smile. She’s always been quiet and nice, so it’s not a surprise that John sent her in to have to deal with a not so happy Sam. Trying to be polite he just smiles back and nods. “Okay, were having an emergency meeting as soon as you’re able, Senior Winchester has some new developments to share on the Oz front.”

He agrees and she tells him to just meet them in the library as soon as he changes. It’s not until then that Sam realizes she set a pile of clothes beside him on the bed.

Slowly he starts to change, the clothes he was wearing are crinkled and have dust on them from apparently hitting the floor in the dungeon. They are also sleepwarm and a bit covered in sweat.

Once he is presentable, as a Men of Letters should always be, he steps out of the hospital wing. The first thing that hits him is cold, not just in that the room he stepped into is physically cooler than the warm hospital, but everything looks colder than before. The stone walls now feel archaic and confining. He stepped into the library, the room he loved and spent so much time in, but he could no longer find the comfort he once thought the room brought him; all of the books he had forced himself to read ‘because he loved research’ were suddenly threatening to fall off the dark shelves and crush his new found realism. The yellowed lights of the room suddenly blinding.

It only got worse when he stepped towards the library table. A dozen faces turn towards him, faces he, up until now, considered family. Family was the second most important thing in someone's life, after duty. The only blood relatives he had there were his parents and a dead grandfather, so why were these people family to him?

Because he chose them?

Because they are good people?

Because they are there?

He genuinely dislikes most of the people around the table, he can actually barely stand a conversation with a few. Ava, Kevin, and Linda are about the only people around the table, including his father, that he would willingly start a conversation with.

He also doesn’t really know these people, they’ve just always been there his whole life.

Bela tried to sell supernatural objects to the highest bidder at one point, and one of her parents is a member of one of the English chapter houses.

Gordon isn’t a legacy, the Men of Letters just picked him up from a vamps nest after they irradiated them from a small town in Nebraska when testing new equipment.

Cole’s parents are both dead, they used to be members and went out on one of the last pseudo-hunts before they were sophisticated enough to deal with such problems remotely.

Ava’s parents are alive, one’s a researcher and the other an operative currently in Oz, he’s honestly not sure which is which.

Walt and Roy just are, they’ve always been around the bunker as guards as far back as Sam’s memory goes and he’s never actually spoken to either.

Linda somehow got involved with the Men of Letters after her husband died of mysterious circumstances when Kevin was just a toddler, so he is almost as much a legacy as any of the others.

John had been a legacy himself, making Sam a fourth generation after his great grand and grand fathers, he met and married Mary as an operative working alongside hunters before the separation of forces. Mary left her family and soon rose through the ranks to become the current Head of the American Branch of the Men of Letters.

Sam wondered what he was to these people around him, if they even considered him as anything other than an asset and good at following orders.

The thought shook him as he lowered himself into a seat at one end of the table: _he is exactly what he used to hate Dean for._

“Okay,” John said, clapping his hands together. “Now that we are all here I think we can get started. Before we talk about the events of this morning, I received an update from our members currently in Oz. ‘As of the day after the capture of the South Witch Rowena, there has been increased activity around the West Castle. There have been four witches observed to have appeared before disappearing again. These witches are all human and naturalborn, with one being human and taught. Two traveled together, and the others separately over the course of two days.’ This report was received via an operative traveling back from Oz earlier today.”

Everyone around the table sat silently, perhaps unsure how to respond or confused as to why they didn’t talk about ‘Rowena’s’ escape. Or they all knew by that point not to try and speak over John Winchester.

“This is something we all knew was coming,” Continued Sam’s father, “But we mustn't be discouraged, the acquisition of the West Castle is still in progress and is set to happen at nightfall in two days' time. Kevin would you like to explain, briefly, the process this will take to happen.”

All eyes shifted to Kevin, it wasn’t surprising that he figured something out, but the castles were locked with a magic they didn’t understand and it was Bela and Gordon tasked with figuring it out.

“Well,” Started Kevin, “While Ava and I were researching into the ability of a castle to choose who entered it, and Cole was wallowing in self pity, we figured out that it isn’t the castle that chooses, it’s the witch in charge of it.”

Bela rolled her eyes, “The West Witch is dead.” The extra, “Dumbass,” Was only loud enough to be heard by those beside her.

Kevin, who in recent years has become less shy and bookish and more snarky and confrontational, snarked back, “Dead, yes, but you really don’t think a witch's magic ends with them, do you? And we regularly deal with spirits that can do more than keep people out of somewheres.”

Bela sat up, leaning towards Kevin across the table from her, about to say something, before John cut her off with a gruff, “Tran, continue.”

“Anyways, we think the old witch's spirit is still connected to the castle, but it’s fading as the witch grows more restless, being yanno a restless spirit and all. I found a spell that we think will separate her spirit from the castle, and we can tie someone else's spirit to it.”

“It doesn’t even have to be a witch, just someone proficient in magic that can sustain their energy long enough to transfer the spell over,” Continued Ava.

“How do you guys even know the spell will work?” Cole asked, because he clearly was just learning about this development even though he was with Kevin and Ava.

“I know it will, I was the one that found it, and even though we cannot test it, I know the most about Ozri magic and it will work.” 

The statement baffled a part of Sam, Kevin was usually the first person to advocate for properly researching something and testing it thoroughly before anyone actually tries it in the field, but with something like this, and a deadline so close, you need to be sure without those things.

The others seemed to accept his answer. Some nodded and others murmured their agreement, like monkeys trained to do so.

“In order to fully claim the castle and the area of West, one of our own will have to take residence there after claiming it.” John shuffled some on the papers around in the folder in front of him. “Bela, as the most proficient in magic you will be the first to take over a castle, in your absence Ava will start to train to take over whichever castle we empty first.

“You will stay there, there will be no less than two guards with you at all times, and others may visit you as often as they wish barring they do not interfere with your work or fall behind on their own. Meet me in the Head office after this meeting is concluded and we will start on the transfer papers and I will brief you on the spell.”

“Of course, Senior Winchester,” Bela purred, smirking around the table, like she just beat all of them in a race they didn’t know they were competing in.

“Now that that is settled, we must move on to our second order of business; the break in and escape earlier today.” His father sighed. “As many of you may know or have heard, one of the attackers was former Legacy and Men of Letters, Dean Winchester. He along with one other human and one supernatural being, were able to enter undetected and take out four Men of Letters, with no injuries given, and escape with a captive.”

Sam looked around the table; Walk and Roy looked angry, Ava and Bela looked confused, Cole and Gordon were laughing to each other, and Kevin and Linda seemed unaffected.

John continued, “The Witch of the South, Rowena, was in this building for less than a day, we do not know how she was able to contact her allies, or if they had any other motivation in this building as of right now. With the Witch now at large, we will need to fortify around the South castle, and our operatives in Oz have started to move away from West. I will lead several members in this room to take up their position in West to perform the claiming ritual.”

“But what are you going to do about Dean, I mean yeah he’s your kid, but he broke in here and stole a witch. You gotta do something.” Cole piped up.

“Dean Winchester, Rowena MacLeod, and the two unidentified coconspiritors, have been placed under a zero-engagement take out order. Following today any one of them, or known to be involved with them, has taken a direct offense against the Men of Letters organization and can be considered an active threat.”

“Isn’t that a bit much?” Asked Ava, while the rest of the room sat in tense silence.

John looked at her solemnly, as if unconcerned that he just put a price on his own kids head. “He chose his own path when he abandoned all of us, and when he sided with a witch and actively took shots against us. He made his bed, I’ll force him into it if I have to.”

Sam’s mouth caught up to his brain in enough time for him to speak before his father tried again, “You know that wasn’t actually Rowena right?”

Most of the room looked somewheres between shocked and confused, except Linda and John. Linda continued to look passively forwards from her seat, but John fumed, knuckles whitening around the folder in his hands.

“You are really going to believe whatever that manipulative bitch told you. That this is all some huge misunderstanding?”

“No,” Sam said slowly, with more confidence than he felt. “But I am going to believe my brother and his best friend, who were both in that room with me. 

“The redhead you all believe was Rowena, not actually her. You might remember who she actually is though. Celeste Middleton, ran away over twenty years ago. She managed to evade the Men of Letters for a decade and even escaped from them.”

“Samuel, that’s enough.” Most of the room turned a questioning look towards John.

“No Dad, I think I’ll continue. How about I mention the fact that everyone was told she died, or that she managed to escape at thirteen years old, or,” Sam paused to make sure everyone was paying attention to him, “The fact that she had to leave because you Seniors threatened to force the lesbianism out of her.”

“Enough!” Called John, “This meeting is dismissed.”

Walt and Roy followed John out of the room, enraged. After a few minutes of silence, everyone else at the table except for Linda and Kevin left gossiping to one another about what just went down.

Linda finally looked over to Sam, they made eye contact for a moment before she tilted her head to the right; indicating for Sam to follow her. They both got up and left through a backdoor in the library, there were footsteps behind him so Sam knew Kevin was following them.

Sam followed her blindly deep into the bunker before they eventually reached an old room at the end of a hallway. Stepping inside he had to swat at cobwebs, but beyond that there were old couches facing a TV that looked nothing short of cursed, and there were piles of game scattered around the room.

“The Dean Cave,” He muttered, remembering all of the times he would play in here with Dean and Charlie, then just Dean, then the few times after he dared enter alone.

“Yes, the cameras in here were never properly installed, so this is about the only safe place in the bunker.” Linda turned back towards him almost expectantly as Kevin shut the door.

“You’re the one who helped Dean and Charlie leave.” The idea of her being his brother's savior had crossed Sam’s mind once or twice since waking in the hospital, but he couldn’t be sure until now.

“I did, and I helped Celeste today, Dean called me a day after she went missing and all I had to do was cut the alarms for an hour.” Linda looked up at him, but down on him in other ways, “Now that you know what I have done, I need you to do something for me.”

“You’re the Senior I don’t know wh-”

“I need you to take Kevin and leave.”

Sam looked frantically back and forth between mother and son, “What? Why?”

Kevin sighed, “Because if I stay they’ll kill me. That spell I gave them isn’t going to work, it’s not Ozri magic at all, it’s not human either so none of them will be able to tell the difference, at best I am going to say it’s faery magic, some kind of attempt to copy the original spell. But that spell I handed over, it will make Bela a little dizzy at most.”

“Why couldn’t you just say there isn’t one, or you can’t find one?”

“A diversion,” Linda cut in, “We need them away from West, preferably not near South either, but away from West at least. Someone is going to have to take over West, and I’m willing to bet they figured that out already based on the sudden influx of witches around the castle.

“As much as your father would not like it to be, it takes a very powerful witch to take over a castle’s power. Almost always natural-borns with strong families, there have only been a few taught witches over all time. Bela is nowhere near powerful enough.”

“Hence, she’ll get a little dizzy at most,” Kevin added when she paused.

Linda gave him a look that just said ‘I did not give you permission to speak’, before continuing, “I kept Kevin around selfishly once I realized I could not abandon everyone here, if I could I’d help all of you escape, but I can’t, I can still help the two of you though.”

“Where would we even go?” Sam questioned.

“Dean’s giving you a chance, he didn’t go far. I don’t know where but I’m sure you could find him. And after that, Oz. You’ll have to get there and get the other’s.”

_‘My offer from that night still stands,’_ What Dean said before Sam was knocked out jumps out of his memories. It was him telling Sam that the rule they made about finding each other if they ever got lost; go to the first motel in the phone book and look for Jim Rockford.

“I know where he is.”

Linda nodded, “I’ll help you leave tomorrow then; it’s too late at night now, they put up extra alarms and warding when they know no one is coming or going. Meet me down in the garage tomorrow morning before early breakfast.”

Sam nodded, deciding whatever question he had would be better if asked in the morning. The exhaustion he felt in the hospital earlier was coming back with a vengeance now that he wasn’t filled with adrenaline.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

When his alarm went off the next morning, Sam considered cutting his losses and letting Kevin go alone. Once he was able to convince himself otherwise he got up and ready.

Getting from his room to the garage wasn’t hard. There was an easy enough path he could take and still use the older and less frequently used hallways, he only ran into one person on the whole way there. It was one of the younger legacies getting ready to go to public school for the day.

He had a backpack full of his stuff; it was quite empty and caused him to realize how few things he actually considered his. He had his gun and best knife, and some clothes of his that were actually comfortable and he could do something other than sit in.

The lights were off in the garage when he got to the garage, Sam decided to leave them that way seeing as how Linda knew what she was doing. There were a few cars running and one of the doors was opened, showing the barely rising sun.

“It’s best if you two leave now before anyone notices you’re not in your rooms,” Linda’s voice said from a few cars down.

Sam walked over to the small electric car they were leaning against. He threw his bag in the car before turning to Linda and thanking her.

“Thank you as well Sam, I’m not asking you to babysit Kevin, but please keep him safe.”

Sam smiled and hugged her, “That won’t be a problem.”

“I gave Kevin a folder and some information that I need you to pass along to Dean. And I need you to tell him ‘good luck’ for me, I don’t know how well he’s handling it, but I would be a mess if anything ever happened like that to Kevin.”

Sam stared down at her, “What do you mean?”

She sighed, “It’s not my place to tell, but you need to know that Dean isn’t the same as you remember him, people change, usually for the better. If you ever need anything from the inside, Dean, Charlie, and Kevin all know how to contact me. Go along there now, Kevin and I have already said our goodbyes.”

Sam hugged her again, thanking her profusely and saying goodbye for what he could only assume was the last time.

He got in the driver's seat of the car, neither he nor Kevin said anything until the Bunker was out of view behind them. It was too hard, knowing they were leaving everything they had ever known behind.

Over the course of the drive Sam would ask Kevin question randomly: 

How long had he known what his mother did for Dean and Charlie? _Years._

Why didn't he leave sooner? _He couldn’t leave his mother there alone._

If Kevin really liked what he did? _It was okay, when he was actually helping people, but there were some normal school subjects he would’ve liked to learn about further._

It wasn’t until they entered Lebanon that Sam told Kevin where they were going. “Look up the first motel in the phone book, on your phone.”

Kevin did, and gave Sam direction to get there. Sam parked in front of the Abacraster Motel, most of the rooms were around the other side of the building so he couldn’t tell if the Impala was there.

He walked up to the young woman at the front counter, she had random green highlights in her dirty blond hair and an oversized sweatshirt on. 

“Hey,” He started, pulling a sweet smile on, “My brother just got here yesterday, and I’ve tried to call him but he isn’t answering, any chance you could point me to his room.” 

The girl barely looked up at him from behind her magazine, “Why would I do that for nothing, you could be some kind of creep.”

Sam rolled his eyes, knowing what she wanted he pulled a fifty out of his wallet, “I think this should make it worthwhile for both of us.”

“Ha, I woulda done it for twenty.” She grabbed the bill out of his hand before spinning her chair around to face the computer, “What’s your brother’s name Moneybags?”

“De-Jim. Jim Rockford.” 

She raised a pierced eyebrow before telling him, “Rooms 106 and 107, he checked in yesterday with his wife, now please leave and don’t do anything too illegal on motel property.”

Back in the car Kevin didn’t ask about the annoyed expression on Sam’s face as Sam pulled the car around the back; pulling into a spot beside one ‘67 Chevy Impala.

“Well, at least we know they’re here,” Kevin said under his breath.

“You take 106, I’ll take 107.” Kevin nodded in response.

Sam took a moment before he could actually knock. Sure, he had already seen Dean the day before, but that was different. This time he was knowingly going to face his brother.

He cast a glance at Kevin at the door one down to his left, he appeared to be waiting for Sam. He knocked on the door twice, hitting each loudly, the same way he used to when he was a kid.

There was some shuffling from inside the room, but after a moment the door opened.

“Hey Dean,” Was all he could force himself to say.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have like an ongoing list of fics I want to write, or try to write, but I just can't write anything else, even a oneshot, right now because this is taking all of the writing power I'm not already giving to my english class. But once this is done I might post more than once a week, who know.
> 
> Thank you once again to my beta/bestfriend/fellow moron Vanty, even if this week's betaing was mostly leaving funny comments across my doc.


	8. Dean

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TBH this chapter was the main reason I started writing this but it just didn't really work out how I wanted it, the whole Dean and Sam reunion, (AKA it should've been a Sam chapter) but it still works, plot happened I guess. This won't be/isn't the only brotherly reunion type fic I will be doing.

Dean stood in the doorway; frozen. It wasn’t the first time he had seen his little brother recently; hell it was _yesterday,_ , but something about this, outside of the bunker, was different. His brother seemed small, granted he still towered over Dean, but the confidence that used to play across his shoulders was gone and his eyes were on his tapping foot. 

He looked like a guilty puppy.

Something in Dean broke. He waved Sam inside, peeking out behind him to see a young Asian man solute him and knock on Kaia and Jody’s room. At least Sam got Kevin out.

When Dean turned around his brother was awkwardly hovering by the end on one of the beds. “Chill out Sam,” He said before walking over and opening the bathroom door. “You’re good Kaia.”

The petite brunette followed him back into the room and looked between the brothers. “Who’s this?” She asked.

“Oh, hi, um,” Sam held out a hand to her, “I’m Sam. Sam Winchester.”

Kaia raised an eyebrow at Dean, either she taught that to Claire or Claire to her because it was a perfect rendition of the look he had received from his daughter on many occasions. He forced himself to not think of Claire, it hurt but he tended to freak out when his loved ones were in danger and compartmentalizing was built into him.

“I’m Kaia Neives,” She shook Sam’s offered hand. “I’m a… friend of Dean’s.”

“Ok,” Dean clapped his hands together. “Let’s go join the other’s.”

Kaia looked back to him and offered, “I can just go over to the other room and let you two sort some stuff out.”

“Nah, we can deal with that later,” Dean countered.

“You sure?”

“Kevin’s over there anyways,” Sam and Dean said in unison.

Kaia looked mildly amused and muttered something along the lines of ‘well that wasn’t creepy or anything’ and led the way out of the room.

Kaia scanned her keycard and let the three of them in. Inside Charlie appeared to be using Kevin as a teddy bear, much to Jody’s amusement and Cas’ confusion. When they entered everyone in the room turned towards them; Charlie was the first to react by abandoning Kevin and attack-hugging Sam.

“I didn’t think you’d come, the stupid note Dean slipped me would’ve been too vague for anyone else, but not our smark little Sammy here.” It was odd hearing Charlie call Sam ‘little’ while holding her like a child.

“Yeah well, I understood,” Sam said after a moment.

Dean walked over to Cas, knowing the close proximity to his angel always made him feel better. Jody watched this action with an expressionless face. “Are you sure, Dean?” She asked, “You don’t want to talk to Sam alone first?”

Dean bristled, hating that she was looking out for him while simultaneously enjoying not having to control this situation. 

Cas brushed his hand against Dean’s, the way he does in public when Dean deems it unsafe for them to be openly affectionate. It wasn’t the gay thing that bothered him, he was way past that, it was just that John taught him how to be ‘manly’ and his parents, or any other Men of Letters, never showed physical affection.

“Dean,” Castiel’s stern voice breaking him from his reverie. “Are you okay?”

He managed a weak smile, “Yeah Cas, I’m good.” It wasn’t as convincing as some other times he’d used the same lie; it didn’t matter anyways, the angel always saw right through him.

“Well then,” Jody interrupted their staring, “I think we’ll have time after all of this later on, so let's get right down to business. It’s safe to assume that the two of you are here to help us find Claire and stop all of this Oz shit, yeah?”

Sam hesitated, looking uncertain, but Kevin spoke, “I know everything about the mission to overtake Oz that my mother did.”

It was only after everyone had seated that Kevin started to explain what was going to go down, “They have a spell, Ava found it and I couldn’t lie about it’s credibility, but it won’t work properly; Bela’s going to use it to try and take ownership of West. I think it is close enough to the real thing that something will happen, it’s mostly likely not permanent but if the Men of Letters even briefly gain access to the castle the after effects could be devastating. Sundown tomorrow, that’s when all of this is going down. They’re relocating some of their forces to a more central location to regroup with the people crossing the border and to watch South, because they still think Charlie is Rowena.”

“Rude, much,” Charlie muttered.

“Anyways, their forces might be depleted there, but it will still be nearly impossible to get close to West anytime soon. And the Men of Letters haven’t realized this, but Rowena’s going after West.”

“She is not allowed to do that,” Cas told him, with his usual adorable confused head tilt, “She would be breaching the contract we made with her if she, or any of her allies, took ownership of another castle.”

“That’s the thing,” Kevin said, pulling a folder out from behind him, “It’s who is with her that’s concerning me.” Kevin handed it to Dean.

Dean flipped it open, skipping the first few pages with what were essentially credentials on them, the Men of Letters fancied themselves important enough to list the status of everyone involved in a mission. He hit the first report; for the most part it just read what Kevin just explained to them. The next one, however, was a surveillance report of the area directly around West Castle.

That area, 10 feet around the entire castle, was not to be entered under any circumstance by the Men of Letters, but it was being closely monitored in case someone were to teleport within their camp. There were four people recorded to have entered in the days prior to the report being made.

A frail younger man, described as ‘possibly malnourished’, short,and natural born witch. _Julien._

A woman in her early thirties, of average to tall build with dark hair, and a taught witch. _Dorothy._

A red haired older woman, elegantly dressed, and a natural witch. _Rowena._

A young adult woman, average build and blonde hair, statue unk-

“Son of a bitch,” He muttered, handing the folder open over to Cas.

Most of the room was now looking towards the two of them seated on one of the beds. Most of their faces showed concern, but Sam just looked confused.

“Is it-” Kaia started.

Cas nodded, closing the folder and looking beside him to Dean, “Rowena has Claire.”

After that there wasn’t much to discuss, they all knew what had to be done. Whatever Rowena was planning had to be stopped, the Men of Letters couldn’t take West, and after talking to Dot they figured that something still needed to be done before Oz collapsed.

And all before nightfall the next day.

The only way to stop the Men of Letters was to have someone on the inside, but Linda wasn’t coming over and Kevin couldn’t go back. 

“I can just go, say you kidnapped me or something,” Sam suggested.

“No.” Dean’s overprotectiveness for his little brother apparently still lingered. “I’m not letting you go back there alone.”

“Then how?”

“We go together.”

Sam and Charlie tried to argue against it, but Dean was the most stubborn of all of them. So it was decided; Dean and Sam would meet back up with the Men of Letters, only approaching right before things started to go down and the rest of the group would go to East and bring the last of their merry little band to West.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dean pulled a face as he dumped his bag inside of Sam’s _eco friendly_ car; not that he didn’t care about the environment but what honestly possessed Sam to take this over and of the awesome older cars Dean knew were in the garage.

“So are you going to do it,” Charlie asked, having walked up to him in attempted silence.

“Char, we’ve talked about this. You know I can’t.”

Charlie sighed, “But you have the bloodline, all you have to do is challenge her.”

“Yeah and that takes support of a majority vote, which I very much do not have.”

“What about-” Charlie stopped talking when Sam approached.

Sam raised an eyebrow, but when neither of them resumed the conversation he elected to say, “So are we ready to go?”

Charlie said her goodbyes and gave each of them a big hug before walking over to the driver’s seat of the Impala. Dean would normally let Cas drive, but with them not being together and everything going on with Claire Dean tends to panic-pray to him. And Cas wanted to be able to focus on planning and helping Kaia on the drive over.

“Is she usually like that when you say goodbye?” Sam asked.

“When you live the life we do, you learn to say every goodbye like it’s your last.” Dean had already said his farewells to Kaia, Kevin and Jody. He and Cas also had a much sappier goodbye in the safety of their closed room; Dean had to kiss the angel on the forehead and remind him that Claire was strong and they’d get her back.

After a moment of awkward, that had never really existed in their relationship before Dean left, Dean gestured to the car, “We can go half and half if you want, but I’m driving first.”

It wasn’t until they were outside of Lebanon that either of them dared speak. “So this portal’s in Lawrence, you got an address or something?” It was an attempt of a joke on Dean’s part, but it fell flat.

“There are actually two in Lawrence.”

Dean straightened the car after jerking it slightly, “What? How?”

“Well you know the six keys right,” Dean nodded, “One key equals one portal and all of that, so after one of the keys was destroyed while killing the West Witch.”

“You guys knew about that?”

“We’ve- uh, we’ve been in Oz for over three years now. Well the portal the Men of Letters have been using was stored in the bunker, they rigged it before they actually put it in the lock though, to be able to monitor who goes through. But they went to Lawrence because a portal was already there.

“It is older, we think it may have been the first key, and we can’t take it out. It was being guarded on either side by actual guards but this,” Sam held up the folder, “Says that all that’s left is some warding ‘cause they needed to relocate the guards.”

“So we just go to this other portal and walk right through, no problem?” Dean inquired.

“Just a bit of warding, yeah, but getting through to Oz was always the least of our problems.”

They fell back into old patterns after that, it wasn’t hard for Dean to see. Sam sat quietly beside him reading through the folder like he used to with a book and Dean drove.

Eventually Sam looked up from the folder; it wasn’t hard to tell what page he had landed on when he asked, “So, each of the people here, who are they?”

“First one’s Julien, he’s North Witch, then Dorothy, East,” Dean said.

“Then Rowena, South,” Sam supplied, “And the last one, Claire? Who’s she?”

Dean took a moment to answer, it wasn’t that he didn’t want Sam back in his life it was just that telling him about this seemed like the thing that would actually make them brothers again, like when they were very young and life wasn’t all about doing what you were told. Before life was shit. But, in the end, he decided that having his brother back was more important than that, and the only way he could have Sammy again was if he was honest.

“Claire’s my kid.” Dean kept his eyes on the road, not wanting to see whatever expression Sam might have on his face.

“But she’s…?”

“Seventeen. And she’s not mine biologically, but I’m still her dad and she’s still my kid,” Dean said firmly.

Finally allowing himself to look over, Dean saw Sam with a small quirk of a smile; he almost looked impressed. “Wow Dean, that’s just… Wow. I never really took you for the whole apple pie life thing.”

They both let out a small laugh at the reference to what Dean used to bitch about ‘normal’ people wanting. 

“Things have changed Sam, my life is different than what I thought it would be, hell I’m different now. But the family I have is the people I chose. I love them and they love me.” It was more chick-flick like than he would have preferred but he rarely cared when it came to talking about family.

“Tell me about them?” Sam asked hesitantly.

“Well you know Charlie, obviously. She found me not long after I visited you that night,” He saw Sam cringe inwardly, “We’ve had our up and downs, apocalypses, secrets and all that, but we’ve been through it all together. Jody is like our group mom, she lost her husband and son before the first apocalypse-”

“Hold on. The _first_ apocalypse?”

“Well it was technically ‘The’ apocalypse, but some similar things have happened since; Leviathan and the angels falling, sorta like apocalypses. And this whole thing went down with Abbadon where I almost took on the Mark of Cain, that would’ve ended in something similar to an apocalypse according to Bobby.”

Sam appeared to have lost whatever connected his brain to his mouth so Dean continued to talk, “What you know Sam, about the supernatural, it’s nothing compared to what’s out there. The information I had when I left is child's play compared to what I know now; the world is a fucked up place.”

“Let’s- let’s not talk about that right now, we don’t need to talk about monsters and death while we're on our way to save your kid man, we’ll have plenty of time for that after.”

Right, after. Sam would still be here after all of this.

“Um, Jody, right. Most hunters are hunters because they lost family and Jody likes to take care of everyone, there are a few kids that regularly stop at her house, it’s a resting place for hunters, and everyone loves her. Kaia’s one of the ones living with her permanently, Alex you’ll meet later, and Claire stays there when she isn’t in Oz cause I don’t tend to stay in one place, but we make a point to be there when Claire is around. Kaia and Claire have only been together for a few months now, but we all knew it was going to happen when they met over a year ago. 

“Kaia’s not one for hunting but Claire loves it; I’m mostly retired now, I help with lore and go out if anyone really needs me, or I am usually on of the go to people when it come to anything bigger than a normal hunt, but I’m happy to say I can finally just live instead of running after everything that goes bump in the night.”

“I’m happy for you Dean.”

“Thanks Sam. Thinking about getting that ‘someplace permanent’ though, probably up in Sioux Falls, that’s where Jody is. I wouldn’t be the only one either, Bobby Singer, he’s an older hunter mostly retired like me, he lives there too. He’s got an old salvage yard that I think I might play around in. And other hunters like Jo and Ellen Harvelle, they’re setting the guns down more lately; everything has chilled out quite a bit since we locked down Hell and Cas and I made Heaven function properly. Sure there always gonna be a rugaru or werewolf fucking around, but the younger hunter’s have got it and if they need help they know who to call.”

Sam laughed to himself but before Dean could ask him, he said, “I honestly can’t believe I thought hunting was a joke. I mean, the past five minutes man; demons: the Men of Letters haven’t seen a demon in ages, angels: they’re real,” Dean nodded, “You talk about fucking shutting down Hell and what, governing Heaven like it’s just another Tuesday.

“And the Leviathan: we knew about their existence, they just appeared one day and we couldn’t kill one, barely took on two before they just killed a whole unit of operatives. And you mean to tell me that you just stopped them, how?”

“Borax mostly,” When Sam pulled a bitchface on him Dean continued, “No I’m not kidding, Jody was teaching Bobby how to clean when it dripped on the one we kept in his basement. And after that we figured out how to send all of them to Purgatory, but we ended up blowing up a large part of Roman Enterprises and Cas and I spent a year in there as well.”

“In _Purgatory_?” Sam asked incredulously.

“Yeah, that was right around the time Charlie met Dorothy too. Since then we helped with the Liberation of Oz and I spent a while fixing things up in Heaven with Cas.”

“Dean?”

“Yes?”

“Is Cas an angel?”

“Yep.”

“Damn.”

That exchange led to silence until Sam finally asked, “So about Cas?”

“What about Cas, Sam?” Dean gave him a warning look.

“Well for starters how did you get involved with an angel?” 

Dean almost laughed when Sam said ‘involved’, _oh the things he doesn’t know._

“Back before The Apocalypse, Charlie was killed by a witch named Aza, then I made a deal to bring her back and I spent 40 years in Hell because of it. But Cas eventually brought me out.”

More like ‘gripped him tight…’ but there were some things Sam probably didn’t want to know.

“So he was just like fuck it I want this one, or something?”

Dean laughed that time, it was too hard not to. “No, God sent him, things were different back then,” Dean said darkly, “Took a while before we were even friendly with each other.”

“What changed?”

And that was but a simple question with a complicated answer.

“To be entirely honest, I’m not completely sure. Cas was as much a toy soldier to Heaven as I was to the Men of Letters, but he’d been doing it for millennia. But he started to see the faults in blind faith and learned emotions for the first time. That’s not to say that it was smooth sailing from there though; he was partially responsible for the Leviathan and the angels falling.”

“That’s not good stuff Dean! How can you trust-”

“Don’t,” He said, voice dangerous and low, “That shit wasn’t on Cas, so don’t you dare insinuate that he isn’t trustworthy. Cas is my family that judgement isn’t yours to have. He rebelled against fucking Heaven and died for me, so if I had to spell it out: I trust Cas with everything I have in me.”

“He’s still an angel though, doesn’t he have better stuff to be doing than hunting?” From anyone else Dean would’ve been angered by the question, but Sam sounded sincere and it still did confound Dean that Cas was just _there._

“Cas is where he is because he wants to be. He could go upstairs and run heaven like Hannah wanted, but we’re his real family, not the other angels.”

Dean wondered how long it would take Sam to figure it out, he had always been smart.

“Dean,” Sam started slowly, “Who is Cas to you?”

There it is.

Dean’s patented ‘thinking about Cas’ smile broke across his face fully for the first time since they had entered the car. “Castiel is the love of my life.”

Dean wasn’t sure if that was the answer Sam was expecting, but he didn’t look surprised. They sat in silence, most of the awkward from earlier was gone, which meant Sam wasn’t pissed or disgusted.

“Does he know?” 

Dean laughed, Sam was more oblivious than intelligent sometimes. “Yeah, we all mushy and sweet and everyone makes fun of us for constantly staring at each other, or ‘eye-fucking’ as Claire calls it.”

“Honestly you have changed,” Sam laughed lightly, “It’s for the better though, I’m happy about that and I’m happy that you're happy.”

“Thanks Sam.”

The rest of the drive they mostly caught up on what the other missed, most of it was smaller stuff. They exchanged dumb stories with each other and laughed together; things got heavier when they spoke about Jess or some of the things Sam regrets doing for the Men of Letters and when Dean recounted any of the times he, Cas, or Charlie died.

It felt right though, him and Sam back together; Winchester brother’s reunited.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When they finally arrived at the portal it was early evening, they took longer to drive there than they thought; a minor directional error put them a little over an hour behind and they made several stops for food and snacks along the way. They weren’t exactly in a rush to get into Oz so they pulled up to a motel instead.

Dean had to pull one of his fake I.D.’s to get a room and Sam seemed fascinated that Dean could easily make them himself.

“I can make you one too Sam, or I can teach you how?” 

Sam seemed eager to learn.

Once they stepped into the motel room each of them threw down their bag on a bed. Dean pulled some stuff out of his bag and Sam grabbed his laptop. 

Something about it seemed almost ritualistic for them.

Something about it felt _right._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have an endless love for just Destiel being soft if you couldn't tell...
> 
> Thanks a bunch to Vanty for she betaed this any a oneshot I wrote because I am like sort of doing NaNoWriMo, I'm just trying to upload 25-30k in November but it will not be daily. I am a student and that would be physically impossible.


	9. Claire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter almost didn't get written in time. I'm still reeling from 15x18, I am very happy/sad/mad/I don't even know about it rn.
> 
> Side note if this were a Dean chapter there is no way in hell I would've even tried to write it.

About ten feet away from her Rowena smiled. “Ready?” She asked.

Claire nodded before the steel knife flew out of Rowena’s hand towards her.

It only took Claire a second, a second too long, so shout, “ _Rumpatur,_ ” With a hand thrown in front of the blade.

The knife shattered into millions of sharp bits that flew in all directions across the room. Rowena seemed to take a small fragment to the arm, which she simply pulled out and it seemed to heal itself with a purple glow from under her skin. Claire, however, had a much larger bit sliced through the side of her thigh, she’d had worse injuries but it still hurt like a mother.

“You really couldn’t have chosen a less messy spell,” Rowena tutted, looking at the bits of knife scattered across the room.

Claire’s jaw dropped. “You threw a knife at me,” She yelled, “So I’m sorry for making your room a little messy.”

“Well that’s not exactly the apology I was looking for, but then again you Winchesters are not known for your use of pleasantries,” Rowena said absentmindedly, whilst magicking away the bits of knife closest to her.

“You should be happy I didn’t get hit with it, because you _threw a knife at me,_ ” Claire shouted.

“Deary, if you had just let it run its course it would have only hit you in the stomach, and I could have easily healed you.”

Claire paused, the pain in her leg more noticeable, and asked, “So you wanted to stab me?”

Rowena sighed, like she was dealing with a petulant child, “No Love, you did what you were supposed to do; stop the knife. But there were much easier ways to go about doing it.”

For a moment Claire wondered how Rowena would feel if she threw a knife at the witch, then she remembered that Rowena was a sane person, mostly, and didn’t appreciate almost being _impaled._

“May I ask what the point of this little, whatever this was, is?” Because if Claire knew one thing about the witch, it’s that she never does something without reason.

“You lied earlier when you said you couldn’t do magic, then you said you had learned the same amount as Charlie.” Rowena turned to look at her, “It isn’t often that someone can lie while fearing for their life, and I can guarantee you that if I threw that knife at Charlie, I’d be healing her upper abdomen right now.”

“Whatever,” Claire sighed, knowing that Rowena could have honestly done much worse and accepting that she’d have to go along with the witch's plan until Claire at least knew the plan, “Speaking of can you heal _me?_ ”

Rowena walked over to her and kneeled to examine the cut through her thigh that had steadily been leaking blood onto her black jeans. The pain had been noticeable before, but once she started to actively pay attention to it she could really feel the full extent of it.

Claire swayed once before falling backwards.

“ _Manele,_ ” Rowena said calmly, and Claire’s body froze before hitting the ground. “See, that there is just one of the many spells you could have used on the knife without making such a mess.”

“Yeah so sorry about that, I’ll do better next time,” Claire sniped, once she had been gently set back on the ground.

Rowena ripped her pant leg open some more, luckily they were only Claire’s third favorite pair, and looked back up at Claire. “Well what are you waiting for, _Bairn,_ it’s just a wee cut, you can heal it yourself.”

Oh look, that anger she let go of before, she found it.

“What? No, I can’t do that,” Claire stared at Rowena, “Were we not just discussing how I can’t even properly stop a knife, now you want me to, what, just magic a cut better?”

“Well you will never learn if you don’t actually practice.” The witch stood and took a step back from where Claire was seated on the floor. “It’s very simple, just think about your leg healed, focus on it actually, and imagine your magic stitching it back together.”

“Yeah simple,” Claire muttered.

Deciding that Rowena wasn’t going to do it for her Claire did what she was told.

She closed her eyes, she wasn’t not used to having an injury so focusing on it came as easily and trying to ignore it for her. Adrenaline was still coursing through her, her brain was practically humming with it. Claire mentally pictured the three inch cut going horizontally across her thigh, she really had no idea what her ‘magic’ looked like so she tried imagining the purple glow that she had seen on Rowena’s shoulder minutes before.

After another moment of this Claire started to feel a cool-ness on her leg, she opted not to look and just keep going though. Having stitched up many people they save on hunts and most members of her family Claire was able to conjure a picture of exactly what getting stitches would look like.

In her head she used a glowing purple needle to pierce one end of the cut; at the same time there was a very concentrated bit of cold pointed at the same spot on her leg. Slowly she moved the needle to knot the end and start moving across her thigh, stitching it together. As she did this it became quite obvious that the cold spot on her leg was moving in tandem with the needle she was imagining.

Once she ended the stitches and tied them off, she imagined the needle disappearing along with the glowing purple string not currently in her leg.

“Brilliant, very impressive for your first attempt,” Rowena said, and Claire knew she was much closer than she had been before. “Why don’t you take a look at your handiwork?”

Claire, after a moment's hesitation, opened her eyes and looked down at her leg. The cut was stitched up, it wasn’t as nice as when Cas healed someone or as well stitched as when Alex did them, but the cut was well lined up and all of the stitches were exactly where she imagined putting them.

As Claire sat in silent astonishment of what she had done, Rowena said, “That should take a few hours to full heal but I expect you should be able to walk on it just fine now.”

“So now that that’s done with, and you cannot argue about being the witch you so clearly are. Are you willing to take your place as the rightful Witch of the West?” Rowena asked.

Claire remained silent. 

“Fine,” Rowena continued, “I’ll just make this the best bloodiest sales pitch you’ll ever hear. First of all, West is dying, that you’ve seen with your own eyes. Secondly, if you take over your family and Julien will still hold the majority of Oz, you’ll actually have three quarters of it instead of two thirds. Thirdly, I am willing to teach you how to overtake a castle which means that if you so wish to do so you could take South from me. Fourthly, if you haven’t realized, this whole giving you West thing actually benefits me in no way, I could have easily found a neutral witch to give it too and all would have been well but here I am giving it to the daughter of the centre of the bloody WInchester family.”

Claire looked at her contemplatively for a moment. “You actually care,” She said out of amazement, “You’re right, this doesn’t benefit you at all. You’re doing it because you genuinely care about Oz.”

Rowena bristled. “Well I rule part of it, would you prefer I didn’t care?” She asked defensively.

“Rowena,” Claire said gently, giving her a look, she honestly wasn’t sure where the sad look came from but it always got her the answers she needed and gave Claire the title of one of the only people that could get Dean to truthfully talk about his feelings.

“Fine,” Rowena said, but it sounded like a curse word the way she said it. “I like it here. This is the first place in my 300 years of life that I have ever- that I’ve ever felt at home in. This was the fresh start I needed; no ones trying to kill me, hell they even like me. And I have a good relationship with Dorothy and Julien.”

Sometimes, and this was one of them, Claire forgot that Rowena was over three centuries old and had been hunted and on the run for most of them. Claire herself had a similar experience, though only for a significantly shorter period of time, after her mother left her and Claire spent her time running from the authorities and later the Winchesters.

“Okay then,” Claire decided, “How do I take over West.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

**Day 1**

According to Rowena, the spell to take over the West castle was relatively easy. There were three parts: The Summoning, The Relinquishment, and The Acceptance. There were also three different magical components involved: basic incantations, alter building and usage, ritual verses, and blood magic.

The best time for Claire to perform the ritual at nightfall three days after her visit to West castle, until then she had four days, counting today, to learn each component of the spell.

“Today should be the easiest for you,” Rowena said happily, “Basic incantations are what you and Dorothy have spent the most time on.”

Since arriving at the room they were currently in Claire had actually done three different spells, unlocking the door, shattering the knife, and stitching herself back together.

“A witch has a certain amount of energy inside of him or her,” Rowena explained after an hour or so of having Claire learn and repeat a variety of spells. “It’s almost like a muscle, the more you use it and the harder you push, the stronger you’ll be next time.”

At one point Rowena even had her practice a levitation spell in front of a mirror so Claire could see her own eyes glowing purple. Rowena’s eyes glowed a pink tinted purple, usually, but Claire’s eyes were a much darker violet shade.

“This one you’ll practice on me,” Rowena said cheerfully, pointing out a spell from the ‘Black Grimoire’.

“What, why?” Claire panted, holding a hand on her side to keep from falling over.

“Deary, I can throw knives at you all day-”

“Please don’t.”

“-Or I can have you freeze me in place.”

The spell wasn’t hard or new to Claire, it was the one Rowena had used earlier to stop Claire from falling, but holding it for any period of time was both exhausting and nearly impossible.

After she managed to freeze Rowena in place for a full five minutes, with the other witch trying her hardest to get free, Rowena finally said, “That is quite impressive, my dear, you’ve only truly been a student of magic for a day and you’ve made excellent progress.”

When Claire was finally released to go to sleep that night she had practiced and learned more spells than she had even seen a witch do in her hunting career and the time she spent with Dorothy.

~~~~~~~~~~~

**Day 2**

When Claire was woken on the second day it was still dark out. She followed Rowena around the castle, holding whatever she was handed.

By the time they actually started the lesson Claire was, thankfully, awake and fed.

“Alter building,” Rowena started, “Is just as easy as you’d expect; get the things on the list and put them in the right place.”

“Then why am I awake right now?”

“Love, I said building it was the easy part. Any cheap schmuck can throw some ingredients down and make an altar. I’m sure your hunting buddies have used a summoning spell before just put stuff in a bowl and say the incantation?”

Claire nodded.

Rowena pointed to a table with a flame surrounded by four smaller bowls on a counter. “This is very similar to the set up you’ll be dealing with in two days,” She said. “I have three of the same ingredients, yethyme, helcot, and blood of another-”

“Why do you need blood? And whose fucking blood is it?”

“Once a hunter always a hunter, eh?” Rowena muttered. “Don’t worry, it’s from an animal I found on the brink of death in West, I wouldn’t have even had time to save the poor thing.”

“So why do we need it’s blood?” Claire asked.

“Surely you’re familiar with a spirit being connected to its body after it dies,” Claire gave her the ‘no shit’ look, and Rowena continued, “Well you’ll be doing that to the spirit of Riyta, that’s still attached to the castle.”

Dealing with a spell as part of an altar wasn’t much different than doing it by herself. Claire had used objects alongside magic before, mainly scrying, but involving several different parts just made it slightly less focused while she did the incantation.

After a lunch break Rowena found a way to mimic a spirit being tied to something so they didn’t have to find any more almost dead animals. 

Claire, by supper that evening, could easily separate a spirit from whatever it was tied to (“This will bring our gas budget way down,” She joked.) and by the time Rowena sent her to sleep she could also tie her own spirit to something. She had practiced on an unbreakable gem in case something got fucked up and they couldn’t untie her, but that didn’t prove necessary in the end.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

**Day 3**

The third day, while not physically tiring, meant that Claire could barely speak by the end. They were practicing ritual verses, which were just long drawn out incantations used specifically for rituals.

“Wasn’t I separating spirits from objects yesterday?” Claire asked after Rowena described what they were doing.

“Yes and no, Love, what you did yesterday was basically an entry level version of what you have to do tomorrow. And this ritual has specific verses written for it that wouldn’t have worked yesterday.”

“So am I just detaching those fake spirits again?”

“No, like I said the verses you need to practice are specifically designed for unattaching a spirit and its magic from a castle. So you’ll be practicing on me.”

Rowena hadn’t been kidding days prior when she said that teaching Claire this ritual gave her the ability to take the Castle from Rowena. Claire, who had become more in tune with her magic, could actually feel the shift in power everytime she split Rowena’s spirit from the castle.

“Now, you can’t practice this part because you don’t belong in the line of succession for this castle, but watch me closely as I reattach your spirit to a castle.”

When Rowena sent her to bed that evening, earlier than the previous two because tomorrow was the big day, Claire layed in bed for a long while thinking about her family, mostly about Kaia. She wondered if her girlfriend would mind living in Oz with Claire, she knew of course that they wouldn’t have to spend all of their time here, but Claire could only leave her castle for so long before it would start to affect her.

Then she thought about Dean. It wasn’t that she was afraid of what he’d say about her being a witch, okay that’s a lie, she’s fucking terrified that once he finds out he won’t be the same. That he won’t be able to look at her the same way again. That this witch thing might fundamentally change their relationship to the extent that it might not even be there any more.

But she’s also terrified of what he’ll say to her ruling a fucking castle; a part of Oz. It’s not that she couldn’t choose to say no, she could, but Claire really doesn’t want to.

Maybe it’s all because of Rowena’s book, but this whole castle thing does feel like something she has to do, like it’s her destiny. And whoever wants to go against that, well, she’ll have to figure out how to handle it later.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

**Day 4**

This is it.

This is the day she becomes a freaking Queen.

When Rowena woke her it hadn’t quite sank in yet, but it sank by now. Very deep.

The altar in the magic room was set up again, in accordance with the ritual. There was birch wood, yethyme, helcot, and a vile of blood. But there was a second vile, as well, it was empty though.

Claire pointed to it, in her defense she slept very little the night before, and asked, “That, why?”

“It’s for your blood, Love,” Rowena said absentmindedly, while moving each object slightly.

That woke her up. “My blood? Um… What?”

“Yes dear, that’s the last thing you haven’t learned yet. Blood magic, you have to actually use a vile of your own purified blood in order for the spell to be completed. The other day when you pulled my spirit out of the castle, that was temporary at best.”

“Okay…”

Blood magic wasn’t quite as difficult as you would think. It’s mostly about focusing on the magic energy that is in your blood as opposed to within you, also known as spirit magic.

They obviously couldn’t do much without actually doing the spell, but Claire did enough for Rowena to deem her ready to complete the spell.

After they reviewed the entire ritual, and made sure Claire knew exactly how to do each part of the spell, it was nearing nightfall.

“I suspect we’re within an hour of the proper time,” Rowena said, placing the last of the ingredients into a duffle, not unlike the one Claire uses for hunting.

The proper time being when the sun is showing half of its face and the whole switching from day to night making it more powerful to do magic at that time.

“One last thing before I take off your cuffs,” Rowena said, and Claire had basically forgotten about them entirely up until that moment. “Just do me a favor and try the immobility spell on me, just once more Love.”

Claire looked at her confused for a moment, and said, “ _Manele._ ”

It felt different than it had days before, like she was trying to go against some force. Was she really that much weaker after just a few days?

Rowena was forced to stay still for a little over a minute before Claire lost the spell. “Well I’ll be damned,” Rowena muttered.

“What?” Claire asked, it’s not like Rowena could deem her unfit to complete the spell now.

Right?

“I’d take a look at them there hand-cuffs if I were you.”

Claire looked down, expecting to see the same thing golden cuffs covered in symbols that had adorned her wrists for the past few days. Instead she noticed that the cuffs were much thicker. 

And made on iron.

“How?” Claire asked.

“I have said this before, and you read it in my book, you’re a damn powerful witch. It just took an excellent teacher to help you realize that.”

Rowena removed the cuffs and after that they were heading back to the mirror room, it was cleaner now than it had been the last time Claire was inside of it.

“Do you sleep?” 

Rowena sighed and looked at her, “My wokenness has little to do with the time I’ve spent asleep, so no I spend little of my time wasting away in unconsciousness.”

Claire decided to halt her further questions.

“Something’s different,” Was the first thing Claire said after they stepped through the portal.

She spun around, hoping to find the change, but nothing was ever that obvious. Then something moved just outside of her line of sight.

“Halt, or we will shoot,” Yelled a female voice, and Claire turned towards it.

The woman was older than she by quite a few years, she had blonde hair chopped off just above the shoulder and was being flanked by several other people adorning the same dark outfits. All of them pointing guns towards her. Except for two.

Two of the men were pointing them at the blonde woman. 

“I think it’s best that you drop your weapon, Mom” Said the first. 

“Shoot my daughter and I will shoot you,” Said the second, much more recognisable, voice, with a tone that only meant pain for whomever was on the receiving end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to my lovely Beta, who not only had to be woken up al 11 pm to read this but has (and will continue to) deal with me freaking out about Supernatural on an hourly basis.
> 
> Also I apologize to anyone that was hoping for more magic based stuff, I didn't include much of the actual teaching here because it would've been a lot of teach it this chapter and repeat it in three chapters.
> 
> And writing magic stuffs is hard lol.


	10. Sam

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am both happy and sad to announce that this is the beginning of the end; this is the last full Sam chapter. 
> 
> I am unsure how the epilogue will fall so I'm still not putting up the chapter count.

It was weird waking up in a motel room for Sam. Sure, he’d slept in plenty of hotels, but they were all new and shiny, and white, but this felt different.

The motel room had thin sheets and a smell Sam wasn’t planning on investigating anytime soon but it felt peaceful. Waking up in a hotel room with the Men of Letters or at the bunker, it felt like a chore most days, but this felt… different.

Sam slowly sat up, Dean’s bed was empty and made, that worried Sam slightly until he got up and looked out the window to see the car still there. The clock said that it was almost twelve, he couldn’t remember the last time he slept past eight, even in his college days.

He had relocated to the small table, he was flipping through the folder and fact-checking mindlessly, when Dean walked back in.

“Cas, we’ll get her back,” Dean said into the phone, “Okay, we’ll meet you there tonight... I’ll pray when we need you… Love you too, bye.”

Sam blinked and looked back towards the table, pretending to not have watched the intimate moment Dean had with his… boyfriend.

Yeah, that was still a little weird.

When they were young he knew Dean, but that Dean is not this Dean.

This Dean is smart, he’s caring, he’s overprotective of his loved ones, people look to him for leadership freely, he has an actual family.

Not whatever mess his blood family is.

“Sam,” Dean said, pulling Sam from his reverie. “Welcome to the world of the living sleeping beauty, I’ve got breakfast.”

Dean held up a paper take out bag, Sam almost protested on the merits of healthy eating, then his stomach growled.

Dean quirked an eyebrow at him when he practically lunged for the bag. “Hungry much? You're big enough already, dude,” Dean commented.

“Shut up Dean,” Sam muttered as he pulled the bag open. He opened the first cardboard box. “Seriously, this is just a box of bacon! How are you not dead?”

“Yes my bacon, you have a salad in there somewhere but I wouldn’t recommend eating it based on the place I bought it at,” Dean said grabbing his box o’ bacon.

Sam pulled his… salad out of the bag when he saw a dangerous smirk grace Dean’s face. “And as to my health,” Dean said lewdly, “Screwing an angel is _great_ for the whole body.”

“Ew, Dean why? You’re such a bitch sometimes.”

“Jerk,” Dean said around a mouthful of bacon, “And you’re making it way too easy.”

Sam smiled at the old nicknames. 

They ate in silence for the next few minutes, apparently, there was a box of hashbrowns in the bag as well.

“Okay Sam,” Dean stood and threw the garbage in the bin. “Let’s get moving, once we hit Oz we’ll only have a couple hours until sundown.”

Dean grabbed an identical duffle to the one already packed on his bed, out of the trunk of the car, while Sam grabbed a fresh shirt to change into.

“Oh hell no,” Dean said, looking up from the duffle, “You can’t wear _that._ ”

Sam looked down at the plain button up in his hand, he contemplated saying something about Dean developing a sense of fashion since coming out and decided against it (Sam knew different people in the community who would joke about stereotypes until the cows came home and others that avidly hated them, so he decided to figure out what Dean was comfortable with before saying anything like that).

“You know there will be actual fighting, right? Like fists and shit, when we get there.”

“Yes Dean I am aware,” Sam snarked, “But I hardly see why it matters.”

Dean rolled his eyes, pulling what looked like a blade out of the bag in front of him, saying, “I’m not giving you a weapon if you're dressed like a penguin.”

Sam scrunched up his nose, “It’s a dress shirt Dean, the penguin thing only works if you’re talking about suits.”

“It’d still look better on the penguin,” Dean whispered, before louder saying, “Just wear this.”

Sam was tossed a plain grey t-shirt out of Dean’s bag, he already knew he was going to wear it but elected to annoy Dean further. “You know Dean, West is quite cold this time of year, I think I’ll just wear my shirt…”

Dean rolled his eyes but Sam could see a hint of a smile. “If your majesty can’t handle a light breeze you can wear this.” Dean tossed Sam a multicolored garment, which upon further investigation proved to be a blue and yellow flannel.

Sam looked at the flannel Dean was currently wearing and latched onto the opportunity. “You have two flannels, Dean?”

Dean looked confused. “Yeah, I got a bunch, why?”

“I mean I just had this friend back at college who was Canadian-”

“Sam,” Dean started.

“He had a flannel just like this one. He also had this huge foam ax,” Sam continued, voice light and humorous.

“Really? Real mature Samuel.” Dean caught on to what Sam was doing and had gone back to trying to hide his smirk.

Sam ignored him and continued, “Told me I could visit his igloo sometime.”

Dean had his head turned but Sam swore he could see a grin on his big brother's face.

“Nicest dude you’d ever meet, he even had a pet moose-”

“That make you the pet moose in this little comparison, dude?” Dean asked and huffed a small laugh.

“I-” Sam blinked.

Dean let out another laugh. “Never thought I’d ever make the great and intelligent Sam Winchester unable to speak, but hey, a win’s a win. Now, are you gonna wear the damn shirt Sasquatch?”

“Thought I was a moose?” Sam retorted.

“You’re a freaking hybrid, now I’d wear the shirt of risk facing the wrath of Charlie.” Dean’s voice sounded concerned but Sam knew it was an exaggeration.

“Fine,” Sam conceded, feigning exasperation to Dean’s continued amusement.

“You need me to dress you too, or did they teach you that as a big boy Men of Letters?”

Sam pulled off the shirt he slept in and flipped the grey one on. “Actually they did, right before they taught me how to brush my hair.”

Dean laughed louder that time. “They ever teach you how to cut it?”

Sam pulled out his patented bitch-face as he slipped the flannel on. “No Dean, I like my hair.”

“I mean just give me five minutes and a pair of scissors and,” Dean made a waving gesture at Sam’s head, “It’d be really easy Sammy.”

Sam froze in place, ignoring the threat to his hair.

_Dean is the only one that ever called him Sammy._

Teenage Sam, the one Dean knew when he left, was too stubborn and bitchy to be Sammy and current Sam was too old and cynical. Sammy was the little boy who looked up to Dean, who could see what his brother was doing for him. Sammy never left Dean, kicked him to the curb, no, Sammy stayed with Dean until Dean gave him back to Sam.

“Dude, you okay?” Dean asked, the lightness and kind-hearted teasing gone from his voice.

“You called me Sammy.”

Dea raised an eyebrow in both question and worry. “Am I still allowed to do that?” He asked quietly.

Sam nodded, shakily, “Yeah it’s just- just that no one’s called me that since you left. Except Charlie, but that’s not the same.”

Dean took a few hesitant steps forward before wrapping his arms around Sam. It was the hug that some small part of Sam knew he was waiting for. Sam wrapped his own arms around Dean in return, he buried his face in his brother's shoulder.

It felt like home. Home; like his apartment at Stanford never had and the bunker stopped feeling after Dean ran.

Dean loosened the hug by a fraction to say, barely above a whisper, “I missed you, Sammy.”

“I missed you too Dean,” Sam replied honestly.

After a few moments they broke apart, the silence in the room felt more comfortable, not that it had been particularly uncomfortable, now.

Dean coughed once, clearly trying to cover up the fact that he had to wipe his eyes clear of tears, before saying, “Okay, now that you’ve got your proper hunting attire on, I’m gonna introduce you to some friends.”

Dean opened the bag he had been rummaging in before.

“Why do you have a bag full of guns, knives, and sticks Dean?”

Dean rolled his eyes. “Not sticks Sammy, but this is like the travel version of Baby’s trunk, we’ve got everything we’ll need against the Men of Letters and the rest is mostly just in case something jumps out and tries to kill us.”

“That happen often?” Sam asked.

“Often enough to warrant a bag.” Sam nodded.

Dean pulled two guns and an eight inch blade out and held them out to Sam. When Sam reached for them Dean pulled them back and said, “Not yet, you need a mini-lesson first.”

“Dean why? I can use a gun.”

“That's not why. Each of these guns will have the same effect on a human, but this one,” Dean held up the smaller of the two guns, “It has witch freezing bullets. It’s a convoluted combination of a pentagram bullet and witch killing ones but I can explain all of that later. Either way, this one will freeze witches completely, so we’ll have witches there on our side so you cannot hit them with this, or they’re out of the game completely. Got it?”

“Yeah,” Sam responded, he understood how Dean was able to reach his level of leadership now. He was honest and straightforward, Sam wasn’t even sure if Dean realized this about himself.

“And the blade?” Sam inquired.

“It’s just a plain silver knife, nothing special but you should always have some sort of backup blade on you.”

Sam accepted the weapons. He hesitantly tucked the blade into a liner in the flannel, remembering what happened the last time he held a silver blade.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

They made it to an abandoned building outside of Lawrence.

“Damn abandoned buildings, why couldn’t we ever have a job inside of a damn well-lit place?” Dean grumbled.

“Let’s just go inside Dean.”

They made their way in, since it was not long after noon they didn’t need flashlights. There were a series of locked doors leading to the portal. One of which was broken already, one Dean just shot (from a far distance despite what you see in movies), and the last required a drop of blood.

They had Dean do it because he had been to Oz before (“And every other goddamn realm,” Dean muttered). The door opened revealing a mirror lined wall.

Sam spun around in vain to try and find some sort of portal, but Dean just wandered up to the center glass pane.

“Come on, it’s through here,” Dean said.

“Are you sure Dean, I mean that might just be a fancy mirror?”

“It’s not Sam,” Dean looked at him. “Do you trust me?”

The Men of Letters always said that the only person you could truly trust was yourself, and you can’t even do that all of the time. But Sam disagreed so he answered honestly, “Yes.”

Sam followed Dean through the not-so-solid glass, and honestly, he has had more pleasant experiences. When he was in the portal he felt like he was floating at the same time he was still on solid ground, and the air around him heated warm for only a second.

When he opened his eyes, because one does not just step through a random portal with your eyes open no matter how much you trust your brother, he was no longer in some sketchy basement.

All around him were vibrant green trees and the air seemed almost golden. But off in the distance the trees turned dark and it just seemed less… alive.

“What’s that?” Sam asked, pointing towards it for Dean’s sake.

“My best guess?” Sam nodded. “I’d have to say that’s probably West. I can’t say I quite knew what it dying meant until right now though.

They didn’t have to enter West to follow the path to the Men of Letters encampment; they just followed it along the edge of Rowena’s territory.

Once they were close enough to see the camp they hid down behind a fallen tree.

“So are we just going to walk up there?” Dean asked.

“Bela has to do the ritual tonight, so she’ll already be here with some more guards than usual and everyone here will know I left.” Sam paused, “And they’re supposed to kill you if they ever see you.”

“Thanks for the heads up. We’ll just have to convince them not to,” Dean said.

Sam looked at him seriously. “And how will we do that?”

Dean paused, he looked between Sam and the tents in the distance, there were only a few people visible at the camp. From what the Men of Letters said yesterday he knew that most of the guards are centered around South Castle at that moment, the rest were split between the camp and West Castle.

“We wait,” Dean said finally, “Once they’re moving we should be able to get close enough to Mary to avoid being immediately killed.”

“And you think Mom will just let us, what, help?”

“If we time it right we’ll be close enough to go time and close enough to West to distract her from the whole killing us thing, and either way Cas and the others will be close by, by then.”

“Okay,” Sam said.

“That’s all you’ve got to say, no suggestions or anything? Man, you have changed, I don’t think you’ve ever willingly gone along with one of my plans before.”

“Dean,” Sam said out of annoyance, “You're a good leader, that’s why people listen to you. And I’ve grown out of the moody teen that never did what he was told.”

“Well you’ve grown, that’s for damn sure.”

Sam rolled his eyes and said, “So now we wait.” Dean nodded.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It had been almost two hours since they sat in their current spot. They had brought their duffles over from their realm and left them hidden under a log not far from the portal, it was just easier to leave it in this realm so someone like Dorothy could teleport to get them.

Sam was laying on the ground while Dean kept watch of the camp. 

“Do you ever wonder what would have happened if you stayed?” Sam asked suddenly.

Dean looked down at him and asked, “How so?”

“I mean, what if you stayed, you could have become the next Head of the American Branch of the Men of Letters.” Sam paused and muttered, “That really needs an acronym.”

Dean laughed. “It does,” He said, “But even if I stayed Sam, in order to contest Mary’s Headship I’d need to prove that I’m better suited for the position, and I am not meeting my own mother in battle.”

“Dean,” Sam sighed, “You know that’s not the only way you can contest her.”

“If I called for a Vote of Favor I would get exactly one vote: Linda.”

“You could always challenge her in intelligence,” Sam suggested.

Dean rolled his eyes, “And how would I do that, I’m not you or Kevin, I don’t just have a wealth of knowledge like you do.”

“We both know you are plenty smart Dean,” Sam said exasperated.

“I don’t know nearly as much as her when it comes to the Men of Letters,” Dean ran a hand over the back of his neck, “And she was a hunter too, so any advantage I had because of that is worth jack.”

“First of all,” Sam said making sure his brother was listening, “You know enough about the Men of Letters to evade them for _years_ , you broke into the bunker and out of it twice, and you know a hell of a lot more about it’s rules than I do because you spent most of our childhood working around them to actually give me fun childhood memories.”

Dean looked like he wanted to object but Sam continued, “And second; Dean you said it yourself, what the Men of Letters actively know about the supernatural is primitive, sure it’s all probably written down somewheres but you have all of that information in your head. You're like a walking dictionary when it comes to this stuff.”

“That doesn’t mean I can win,” Dean protested, “If you're so dead set on usurping her, why don’t you do it yourself, all it takes is any blood relative or partner of hers to call rites.”

He didn’t deny any of it.

He deflected it but that’s a given. But Dean Winchester didn’t just accept praise, not before anyways.

“Did you not just hear my little speech, Dean,” Sam rolled his eyes, “ _You_ should be Head, not me. You’re practically perfect for it.”

“I’m not a good leader, Sammy,” Dean deflected, “Just drop this, we have bigger things to worry about.”

Putting the mission above personal problems, how very un-leader-like of him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

It wasn’t long after that conversation that the camp started moving. The tents were collapsed but left behind, Sam and Dean didn’t bother going through them knowing that the Men of letters would never leave something of actual value behind.

They followed the Men of Letters into West, they kept as much distance between them as possible, all while twisting through the trees to avoid being spotted.

Finally they came to a stop. Sam first looked up to the sky, and subsequently through the trees in an attempt to gauge the position of the son because his watch wasn’t using the same time as Oz.

“It’s almost time,” Dean said from lower to that ground than he should have.

Sam spun around to look at Dean, he was sitting against a tree with his head in his hands.

“What are you doing?” Sam asked.

“Praying,” Dean muttered absently.

All too quickly Sam responded, “Didn’t exactly take you to be the faithful type seeing as what we do.”

“Not to God,” Dean gave him a hard look, “To Cas.”

“He can hear prayers?” Sam was briefly captivated by the astonishment. “Like all of them?”

Dean stood up. “Technically he hears all of them but they’re too quiet to actually be audible; unless he tries to hear them or someone prays specifically to him.”

There was movement from the Men of Letters. 

Sam turned to Dean and said, “We are talking about this later,” Dean nodded in agreement. “But for now, we have a family reunion waiting for us.”

When they moved closer to the Men of Letters Sam could see five people; Bela, Cole, two guards he didn’t recognize, and Mary.

Bela had a bag, full of the spell components she would need, not that she would actually be attempting a spell.

Dean stepped out of the foliage first, he was only about ten feet from the group. Sam followed them out and put a hand on his gun, mimicking his brother.

Sam could hear Bela say, “It’s just about time now, I should set up my altar.”

Dean had his gun drawn when he said, “Now I don’t really think that is necessary, seeing as you won’t be the one performing any magic today.”

Cole and the guards jumped into action, pulling their guns and training them on the brothers. One of them asked, “Head Winchester, how do you want us to proceed?”

Mary addressed Sam and Dean instead of the guard, “Boys, lower your weapons and step forward. We can be civil about this.”

Dean followed her orders with tense shoulders, so Sam did the same. Once they were closer Bela was standing behind Cole giving them an odd look and Mary was craning her neck to look her sons in the eyes.

Sam waited for her to do something, anything, but she merely looked Dean up and down, and said, “With all the trouble you went through to leave us, you have sure been around a lot in the past few days.”

“I’ve had things to do,” Dean replied, his voice and face cold. He showed no warmth towards the woman who was supposed to help raise and nurture him.

“You left Dean Michael, and you know what happens to those who are excommunicated. Lucky for you you’ll be able to watch us take over the place you thought you freed. This place may seem like a haven for magic folk, but it needs order and a couple of rouge witched cannot provide that. So we are here.

“Guards, restrain them.” Mary turned away to see a different guard run up to her.

Cole ran for Dean and one of the others to Sam, the other staying in front of Bela. Sam grabbed the man by the wrist when he attempted to cuff Sam and spun him around to lock him in place. Dean had his guard in a similar position.

The new guard, a woman this time, looked at Mary and said, “The witches have begun the spell in front of West Castle.”

Mary blanched before drawing her weapon and heading towards where the woman had emerged from. Dean twisted Cole’s arm around and dropped him to the ground, following after Mary.

Sam let his guard go and the two of them followed as well.

Sam pulled his gun out and stepped into the clearing with enough time to notice two figures standing in front of a large stone wall, before, “Halt, or we’ll shoot.”

Sam pointed his gun at the guard at the same time as Dean pointed his to Mary.

“I think it’s best that you drop your weapon, Mom” Sam said.

In a darker tone than Sam had ever heard him use, Dean said to their mother, “Shoot my daughter and I will shoot you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As of right now this is unbetaed (She went to bed lol) I might update it later but IDK.
> 
> Thank you for reading this far, I hope I do the ending justice for you.


	11. Dean

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is late for to reasons:
> 
> 1\. I stayed up wayyyy too late on Saturday night (think 5am) and could do fuck all on Sunday  
> 2\. I panicked about the finale vs. the ending of this cause I don't want to do _that_

Dean watched as his mother’s face turned from confusion to fear as he and Sam trained their weapons on her.

“What do you think you’re doing, Dean?” Mary hissed, “We already have a take out order out for you, you’re lucky we didn’t kill you the second you got here.”

“You didn’t kill me because I’m still your son,” Dean accused.

“You haven’t been my son since you abandoned your duty to your family.”

Dean looked around him, to the uncertain guards holding their guns partially in the air, to Rowena and Claire standing in wait for whatever is going to happen next, and back to his mother who reminds him of a child not getting her way.

“Family ain’t about duty,” Dean said, making sure he was loud enough for the others to hear, “Family is about love and protecting those that you do.”

“See, you have a _duty_ to protect your family.” Mary smirked victoriously.

There was a short pause where Dean had to forcefully remember all of the work that his real family, Cas and Charlie especially, put into ridding him of that exact mindset.

Cas was close by now; Dean could feel it, the light pull of the profound bond they share from part of his soul and some of Cas’ grace melding back in Hell.

Dean sighed. “Your fucked up family values don’t have the same affect on me that they had when I was a kid. I’m a grown ass man now.”

“Really,” Mary scoffed, “You never were cut out for a family, were you Dean? You ran away from your only real one.”

“Family don’t end in blood,” Dean said immediately. “And it don’t start there either,” He added with more conviction.

Mary didn’t look perturbed by Dean’s resistance. He knew from experience that she would never let an issue like this one rest; the last time Dean attempted to directly oppose her she threatened to kick him from the Men of Letters. She had an idea of what family was supposed to be and anything except that was wrong.

Dean had only been seventeen then, it was the one time he brought up maybe attending college. He wanted to study engineering or mechanics so he could help design and build new weapons for the Men of Letters.

The Men of Letters said they didn’t need new weapons.

John said Dean wasn’t smart enough to go to college.

Mary said he was wrong for trying to abandon their family and that not being a guard like his father was cowardly and a waste of his potential.

“You don’t have a family Dean. What could you possibly know about it?”

Dean looked at her, utterly dumbfounded. “This,” He said pointing her towards Claire, “Is my daughter.”

Mary’s face turned stoney. “You left eleven years ago Dean, she’s much older than that.”

Dean looked over to Rowena, who was giving his mother a look of utter disdain, and Claire, who had an expression that read ‘how old do you think I am?’ before turning back to his mother.

“You may think that,” Mary sneered, “They may have you believe that they are your family, but they’re not. We are. If you come back we can help you.”

The worst part about the matter is that Mary believed this. She believed that the Men of Letters were this pinnacle of human existence, when all they really are, are a bunch of brainwashed fools that do nothing whatsoever to help save people from the supernatural which is their supposed field of work.

“I’m not going back Mary,” Dean said shaking his head at her, “Not while it’s run by a tyrant like you.”

The guards beside Dean moved towards him slightly, almost in warning. Mary raised a hand to steady them.

“You may think I am a tyrant Dean, but I’m just doing what is best for the Men of Letters. And now I am doing what is best for Oz, by taking it over.”

“You really believe that don’t you,” Dean cut off Mary’s attempt to respond, “You believe that fear mongering and oppression is the best way to lead?”

“How else would people know who is in charge without authority?” She challenged.

“You could just try to be a good leader,” Dean suggested, “Make them _want_ to follow you.”

“You may have left the Men of Letters Dean, but that doesn’t mean you know anything about leading.”

“You know what? That’s you’re fucking problem,” Dean told her, “You don’t see others as threats. You still see me as that little boy you forced into obedience because it was more convenient for you that way. You’re too busy gorging on ancient books and walking around with your noses in the air to realize what’s happening in the world around you.

“I’m Dean Goddamn Winchester. I’ve helped save the _world_. I dare you to go out and actually look a monster in the eye and ask them who they are afraid of, because it’s me. I’m one of the best hunters on the planet, I’ve taken on more supernatural beings than you can name, I’ve been to Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory and lived.

“People follow me into fights because they want to. Because they know that I’ll do anything to protect them and we are saving people. That’s what hunters do; we save people. Sure it’s messy and a lot of the time we don’t all make it back, but I wouldn’t do anything to change what my life has been to take me to this point.”

There was a tension in the air. Everyone was frozen in place waiting for Mary to say something back.

“Secure them.”

Hands grabbed at Dean’s, his gun was removed and his arms yanked behind his back holding him by his biceps. Once he was pushed down with a kick to the back of the knees and could do no more than pull at his constraints he looked at his assailants. It was the same guard that tried to subdue him earlier and the female guard.

Behind him, Sam was similarly captured with Cole and the guard that was previously protecting Bela holding him back.

There was a blood curdling scream and Dean’s head snapped over to see Claire with a large iron collar around her neck fall to her knees. There were two guards behind her holding the collar by chains.

Rowena had no cuffs or collar that Dean could see, but she was being held by a guard on each arm.

“Did you really think you surprised us with this little appearance?” Mary asked, stepping forwards and crouching to look him in the eye, “We knew you wouldn’t let us take over easily, but to walk in here two against most of the guards stationed at our Bunker… Well I had honestly thought you were smarter than that.”

Dean sneered as she ran a placating hand down his cheek. “Or,” She continued, “Did you think your little speech would change my mind?”

“Maybe the speech was just me showing off my awesomeness,” He suggested.

_‘From all sides.’_

“‘Cause I mean, I am pretty awesome,” He continued.

_‘Wait for my signal.’_

“But maybe,” Dean let the knife in his sleeve fall into his grasp Cas-style, “I was just stalling.”

Dean smirked at her before twisting his forearm and wrist to stab one of his captors in the arm before twisting out of her grip and hitting the hilt of the knife into the others wrist and shoving him backward with Dean’s built up momentum.

_‘Go time.’_

During Dean’s release Mary had stood up and taken a step back, Dean met her there. None of the other occupants of the forest dared move, based on the look on Rowena’s face she could have all of the guards dead with the flick of a finger but she was waiting for Dean, and Sam had his knife in his pant leg, which was within reach of his long arms once told to use it.

Mary crossed her arms. “Impressive,” She deadpanned, “You escaped two human captors.”

“No,” Dean said as there was a myriad of snapping leaves and rustling branches, “We surrounded you.”

Jody, Cas, Kaia, Alex, Charlie, and Donna each took a step inside of the clearing with guns trained on the Men of Letters. Dorothy and Julien, more tactfully, appeared behind Claire, Rowena and their guards.

Mary spun around, clearly unused to being at a disadvantage in any situation. She spun back to glare at Dean, saying, “This is a direct offence against the Men of Letters, step back or you will be captured and imprisoned.”

“Fancy words,” Dean said, “For someone in no position of power.”

“Whether I have any power here has nothing to do with what I said. All of you will be hunted down and captured like the scum that you are.”

Dean took in a deep breath, staring at the smug look on his mother’s face. “So it doesn’t matter to you, whether or not Oz is happy and stable, just so long as it is under your control?” He asked.

“Oz is full of witches, faeries, and munchkins, not people. We are merely trying to restore the order you destroyed.”

“When Charlie killed the Wicked Witch of the West?” Sam, who had been uncharacteristically quiet this entire time, spoke up. His two guards had released him and were standing with their weapons on the ground and hands at their sides with Alex moving her gun steadily between the two.

Dean watched the other guards take similar defensive moves away from their captors, except for the two holding Claire’s collar.

“Riyta was an ally,” Mary defended.

“An ally that tried to kill the entire faery population of West?” Dean asked.

Mary shot him a look of disdain. “As I said,” Mary jeered, “ _Restoring order_.”

The guards behind Dean shifted, they were both looking anywhere except at the mother and son. A thick tension shot through the clearing as Dean looked at all of it’s current occupants.

“Murder,” Dean deadpanned, “That’s what you’re Headship is built on isn’t it, killing those ‘lesser’ than you?”

In truth, she gained her Headship of the Men of Letters American Branch by marrying John; Henry Winchester was the last Head before him, but he died young leaving John to rule for most of his life. John was not as adept at leading as the woman he married so he allowed her to call for marriage rites to the position.

“I am Head because I earned the position,” She shot back, her voice lacking it’s usual conviction.

“You called marriage rites and John didn’t fight you on it,” Dean reminded and she fumed at him.

Her face glowed red as she sputtered out, “Dean Michael! I raised you better than this.”

Dean laughed coolly. “You didn’t raise me any more than you saved anyone. You are a pawn, a good one I might add, for the purpose of controlling all of us into thinking we are actually helping people. I figured that out years ago, it’s time they do as well.”

“And,” Mary laughed, “What are you going to do about it?”

Dean didn’t respond for a moment. He glanced to Charlie who eagerly nodded at him; Claire who, while fearful, gave him the briefest of smile; and Cas who didn’t do anything per say, he locked eye contact with Dean, but he knew Cas was always on his side.

He had to, because if he didn’t the Men of Letters would continue to hunt his family down for both associating with Dean and taking arms against them.

“I,” He turned back towards his mother with a determined look in his eye, “Am going to call for blood rights.” He pointed his knife at her.

He watched Mary’s body flinch in surprise.

Once everyone was focused on him again he recited the words he memorised at 22 before he realized that attempting to take over Headship at that time would mean suffering, or worse, imprisonment. Dean elected to abandon not taking his place at the top of the Men of Letters once already, he wasn’t about to do it again.

Especially not when his family was on the line.

“As a Winchester, one of the current line of Winchester is Headship, grandson of Henry, son of John, son of Mary. I, Dean Winchester, call upon my blood rites to the Headship; as the fourth of my name and first to take it by force.

“I challenge Mary Winchester for the position,” He finished.

“You need a vote by the Councillors of each American Bunker in order to do so,” Mary argued, an unspoken plea in her voice.

“Not if you call for it during a battle,” Dean said, watching her look to each of her guards for help. Most weren’t looking at her, in fact they all seemed to have developed a fascination with the ground. Except Cole, he was glaring unpleasantly at Dean because he is an oblivious dick.

“You aren’t even a member anymore,” She said, her voice was almost small and fragile sounding.

“Actually you may have usurped my membership to the Men of Letters, but I’m a legacy. It takes a separation ceremony to strip me of that, and therefore, to strip me of the right to call for this. And don’t forget the zero-engagement take out order; it would suck if you ignored that and had to be punished for your defiance against capturing an active threat such as myself.”

“How would you like to challenge?” The female guard behind him, who Dean now recognised as his cousin Gwen. She followed Mary to the Men of Letters after they ‘assisted’ on one of her hunts years ago.

“Challenge of Intellect,” Dean said, smirking at the look of bafflement that crossed both the Campbell and the former Campbell.

Gwen schooled her expression. “As the person of highest honor here, below Head Winchester, as the Commander of the Guards, I will be adjudicating this challenge for Headship. In this challenge each member will be asked by any other Men of Letter present a question regarding lore, the supernatural, or the Men of Letters. I have the authority to veto any question asked as I see fit. This will continue until one of the competitors forfeits and has their titles stripped, a clear winner is presented, or a majority call is made for a winner amongst the crowd.”

She turned to Mary. “As current commanding Head do you, Mary Winchester, accept the challenge for your title?” Mary nodded.

Gwen then turned to Dean. “As a legacy and descendant of Winchester do you, Dean Winchester, choose to begin this challenge?” Dean nodded.

“This challenge, as it involves both sides of the current battle, it requires a truce from both sides,” Gwen announced, “Everyone drop your weapons.”

Dean watched his people all drop their weapons, Rowena, Dorothy and Julien each put their hands behind their backs. Claire’s two guards dropped her chains but no one attempted to unsecure them. She gave him a look and her eyes flashed purple so Dean knew they didn’t bother her for now.

Dean and Mary were corralled by Gwen more towards the centre of the clearing as everyone else properly fell into a circular formation around them.

The questions started off small, things anyone in the life should know. As they picked up Dean started to miss some regarding policies and history of the Men of Letters, while Mary lost her streak for hunting questions. Neither were great at lore, Dean was good at naming what something is and how to kill it, just not where it came from and Mary was just out of practice.

Everyone around them watched the two back and forth, like a championship game of pinball. Gwen was keeping score but it was so close that no one knew who was winning.

“Who is currently ruling Heaven?” An older guard behind Rowena asked.

Mary smiled viciously, like a cat, before looking at Dean and replying, “God hasn’t been around in years, and Archangels Michael and Raphael have both attempted to rule Heaven and lost. The current ruler of Heaven is an angel named Naomi.” Her smug tone made him want to cringe.

Dean was reminded of Naomi, and the torture that she put Cas through not long ago; trying to brain wash Dean’s angel into killing him. He hated being reminded of things like that.

Impressed looks past the faces of most of the Men of Letters, obviously this was not uncommon knowledge to them.

Among Dean’s family, however, eyebrows were raised.

“Actually,” Dean interrupted, “That’s where you are wrong. Heaven is being ruled by a council of nine angels.” At the skeptical looks he received, Dean continued, “Jalial, Kiriel, Yona, Memra, Elphrair, Hannah, Lehora, and Raena.”

Gwen looked at him suspiciously. “How do you know this?” She asked, “And why should we believe you?”

“I know because it was me who helped, what is it that you said, ‘restore order’ upstairs. And believe me or don’t, but you should believe him.”

Everyone turned Cas, whom Dean was pointing to. Cas stepped back (for eye safety) and spread his wings. They were tattered and torn from the fall, but they still had the ethereal glow and majestic feel radiating from them.

Cas opened his eyes to show off the heavenly blue glow.

_Diva_ , Dean thought, he was in love with a dramatic diva. And he was surprisingly okay with that fact.

Everyone was momentarily speechless and Dean was suddenly reminded that even those on his side that knew Cas was an angel, most hadn’t seen his wings since before the fall, or at all.

“What exactly do you mean you restored order to Heaven?” A younger female guard asked from the opposite side of the ring from Cas.

“Cas here, and I,” Dean said, pointing to his angel, “Knocked Naomi and Metatron off the playing field, after that it wasn’t much work to unite the factions back into a council. It's a democracy and everything.”

Most of the Men of Letters turned to him in bewilderment. “I think,” Gwen said, her voice less steady than before, “That this is an appropriate time to hold the vote.”

The others nod in agreement; Mary tries to deny it but the Men of Letters don’t give her the opportunity.

Gwen explains that the vote will be held by going around the circle and she will record it as they go. She, Mary, and Dean do not get a vote, but all other Men of Letters present do.

She starts to her left and moves around the circle.

_Dean_

_Mary_

_Mary_

_Dean_

_Mary_

_Dean_

She gets to Cole and the vote is tied. He says _Mary_.

Sam is next, luckily no one objects to his voting. He says _Dean_.

The vote is tied and Gwen is about to restart the questioning when Bela steps out of the trees. 

Dean is not sure who she will vote for. He had hoped to pull out a larger lead in the votes, but there were always going to be people loyal to Mary because she is the current Head or they just don’t want Dean.

He watched her enter the circle, Sam and Gwen stepped away from each other to allow her space. Bela was someone that Dean would have tentatively called a friend before he let, but that held no grounds now. She was ambitious and cunning, she could go either way and make it work for her.

Bela looked up, glancing at Mary and Dean watching her. She smirked once at him and Dean felt the pit of his stomach fall out.

“I choose,” She said, drawing out the words, “ _Dean_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I bother my beta when she's doing homework lol...
> 
> Sorry Van'ty but you chose to take that study break.
> 
> If you have _any_ suggestions or critiques about how this is ending I would _love_ to hear them. I am still new to writing in general and most of them are super short so I don't have any prior conclusion experience.
> 
> There is still a final part of the ending from Claire's POV though, so I should wrap up the rest of it.
> 
> Thank you, hope you enjoy!


	12. Claire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter that is like a part of the official plot line, I'll have an epilogue out next week to wrap up any little plotlines and small things.
> 
> This is the third shortest chapter, but it just felt like the ending, so I went with it.
> 
> I reread the entire fic and wrote a fuck-ton of notes in prep for this because I really wanted to do the ending well. Hope you enjoy...
> 
> *Drops chapter*  
> *Runs*

Claire remained where she had been pushed to her knees. The iron collar around her neck proved to be no bother when she snapped the metal cuffs they stuck on her minutes ago. It was a little uncomfortable thought.

Rowena and the others had formed a circle around Pops and the woman who was apparently his mother. Claire knew bits and pieces about her grandmother in the past, but she had to admit the threats and capture were not a great first impression.

The vote went around the circle, jumping from Men of Letters to Men of Letters. It was a tie by the time the vote made the way around the circle. That was until a woman about her Pops’ age stepped out of the trees across the circle from Claire.

She was shorter than the men on both sides of her but not short. She also had dirty blonde hair and an unsure expression on her face. The dark haired woman adjudicating the face off referred to her as Bela and asked who she voted for.

Claire worried, assuming this was one of the people Pops used to be close to and left. Bela could easily vote either way.

“I choose,” Bela breathed, “ _Dean._ ”

Chaos erupted after that, most Men of Letters that had voted for their current Head all demanded a revote or said Pops wasn’t allowed to be Head because he wasn’t actually a member.

Claire smiled as each of them were restrained by her family; Kaia was there, with one of Claire’s old guns pointed unsteadily at a guard who was yelling at Bela.

“What the fuck are you doing?” He demanded, while being restrained by Alex and Donna, “We were going to take over, be free.”

Bela laughed at him. “Cole, I never wanted this. Especially not with you, or Gordon for that matter. Why would I have any desire to be trapped in a damn castle like a fairytale princess?”

When Cole tried to argue, he called Bela a bitch and she sucker punched him across the face. Kaia then pulled something from her oversized coat and threw it at him, causing Cole to scream in pain. Papa walked over and knocked him out after that.

Papa put all of the resistors to sleep, one at a time. Mary and Pops were still facing each other when things finally settled. 

Kaia was beside her now, Alex as well. 

“What the Hell did you do to him?” Claire asked.

Kaia shrugged and muttered something that sounded like, “Killian gave me some wylmrose.”

Claire smiles at her amazing girlfriend before Kaia tries to reach up and remove the iron collar, but all it is is iron and a few weak sigils so Claire easily removes it on her own.

Alex and Kaia gape at her but choose not to ask questions.

Back on the other side of the clearing, Pops is staring down his mother, when Mary finally decides to speak, “This temper tantrum of yours will never go over with the rest of the organization.”

“Actually, you accepted the challenge so my position is binding,” Pops was stone faced as he delivered the news.

“This is true Mary, you are no longer Head of the American Branch of the Men of Letters,” The adjudicating woman agreed.

Mary scoffed. “What am I supposed to do, be a simple researcher again?”

Pops laughed, along with the very tall man beside him. “I would recommend you research apartments, because you can consider this your early retirement announcement.”

Mary’s fury was visible in her body and on her face. “You don’t have the-” She started.

“The what?” The man beside Pops asked, “The authority to do that. He does now, Mom.”

_Mom._

Mary Winchester had two people on the planet that called her that.

Dean and Sam.

The freakishly tall guy beside Pops was his brother.

By the looks of Kaia and Alex they knew this as well; Kaia didn’t look surprised though.

Mary stomped away after that. She was followed by two guards that had voted for Pops. The three guards that voted for Mary and had tried to fight that Papa put to sleep were carried out of the clearing by Jody, Donna, Charlie, Sam, Alex and the remaining Men of Letters.

The clearing was more empty now; just Claire, her Dads, Kaia, and the three castle witches. It was obvious the others were trying to give her space.

Rowena, Dorothy, and Julien were further away, standing in wait for Claire. She was familiar enough with the practices of the Council of Four Chairs to know that they perfered to handle issues directly but they also handled conflicts indirectly.

She was still kneeling on the cold ground; Kaia had an arm around her, whispering encouragement in her ear.

Claire eventually lifted her head to look up at her Dads; Pops then leaned down and helped pull her to her feet. He brushed the hair out of her face.

“Are you okay?” He asked, voice barely above a whisper.

Claire nodded before she found herself being pulled in for a hug. She and Pops weren’t overly affectionate people but it was much needed at that moment. Papa joined them a minute later, causing Pops to laugh at him for being unsure of himself. 

Then he apologized because Claire’s Pops couldn’t control his mouth.

“So what’s the plan now?” Pops asked.

Kaia slipped her hand into Claire’s after she separated from her Dads, and they turned towards the three witches.

Rowena stepped forwards, metaphorically puffing out her chest. “In accordance to the Ozri Book of Succession-”

“Wait, you found that? Why didn’t you tell us?” Dot interrupted.

“I only just found it, and it’s been a busy week,” Rowena shot back at her.

Pops rolled his eyes and gestured for them to get on with it.

“As you probably already know, West is dying,” Rowena explained, “After Riyta died we attempted to split it’s land evenly between North and South, as per our agreement disallowing me from taking control of another castle.

“This obviously failed so it was pertinent that we find another witch to take her place. While Claire may not have been your first choice I should hope you know that she is in fact the most apt to do the job.”

Rowena stepped back, looking at her hands, her words were harsh but the meaning behind them was clearly coming from a place of good.

“Claire,” She felt her Pops lay a hand on her shoulder and look up at him, “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“I do,” She answered, “It- it feels right.”

Pops looked over to Papa for… confirmation? Something of that sort at least, before turning back to her. “Are you sure you’re _ready_ to do this?” He asked. “There’s no shame in taking a little extra time to prepare for something like this.”

“Pops,” She placed her hand over his larger one, “I’m ready, Rowena taught me everything I needed to know and I know what all of this entails.”

Pops didn’t respond at first; he just looked at her solemnly like he was fighting back emotion and Claire felt her throat tighten. What if Pops didn’t want her to do this? What if he said no, could she go through with it alone? She had to do it though, right?

Pops sighed. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Claire asked her Dad, “All of this; your daughter’s suddenly a witch, she’s gonna take over a magic castle in a far away land, and you’ll probably never see her again and all you have to say is ‘okay’?”

She may have been a bit worked up, but she expected some sort of reaction from him. She just didn’t know if it was going to be good or bad. Not just ‘okay’.

“Claire, Honey,” Pops' grip on her shoulder tightened minutely and he made sure they maintained eye contact before continuing, “I trust you. I trust that you can make this decision for yourself, but you should know that I’ll- we’ll always be here for you. That’s what family is. As for you being a witch, I had my suspicions, but Charlie confirmed them a while back, maybe most witches are annoying but you’re not most witches. As long as you don’t kill any rabbits.” Claire huffed a wet laugh; only then did she notice she was crying after Pops swiped a tear off of her cheek.

After a few moments Pops continued, “Maybe we’re not conventional, and I like that about us. So you owning a freaking castle is a magical realm is one of the least crazy things that has happened in my life. Plus I think you might have missed the part where I became supreme overlord of a bunch of mindless drones all across the country.”

They laughed again before Papa decided to speak up, “This is perfect for you Claire, you were always destined to do great things.”

When Papa placed a hand on her opposite shoulder was when she allowed herself to break down. She leaped forward and started to cry into her Pops’ flannel as Papa rubbed her back.

After a minute she forced herself to recompose. 

She wants to do this.

She can do this.

She _will_ do this.

She stepped away from her fathers and towards the witches. Only once she was out of reach did Kaia let go of her hand.

Julien was staring mindlessly off to the side, but Dot and Rowena both watched her with acute interest.

“It’s time,” She said in the steadiest voice she could conjure up. Glancing upwards at the darkening sky. She couldn’t see it, but a witch can always feel when the sun is setting and rising; the two most powerful times of the day.

“Excellent,” Dorothy responded with an encouraging smile.

In tandem Dot and Julien approached the castle and each pressed a palm to the wall. Slowly the brick melted away revealing an ornate wood and brass door. The two of them then walked several feet away.

Rowena walked up to her then. Making the bag of supplies she collected appear in her hand and passed them over to Claire.

“Good luck, Deary.”

Once the path between her and the castle was clear, Claire stepped forward. The air crisped as she got closer; a low hum filled the air. It wasn’t audible, just like standing beside a silent powerful machine.

About five feet away Claire halted. She dropped the bag beside her feet and raised a hand forward.

This was it; no going back after this.

“ _Aperiatur,_ ” She spoke, the uncertainty gone from her voice.

The two doors swung open inwardly, revealing a large open passage. But it was filled with silver and grey smoke. The cloud swirled and spiraled in front of her almost mockingly.

Not looking away from the entry, Claire sank back to the ground. She then looked away to start pulling items from her bag.

First was the small vial of holy water that she dripped across the ground in front of her. She swiped some of it around with her finger and muttered, “ _Ritum sacrum. Hanc terrum consecro._ ”

She draped the black silk cloth across the dying grass in front of herself. From there she placed a large wooden bowl in the centre of the altar, with four bowls evenly spaced around the large bowl.

In the bowl to her left, Claire added the Yethyme. Thyme roots dipped in the blood of an angel or a demon. In this case it was angel with both worried and placated Claire.

Into the right bowl Claire added Helcut; a flower that is planted on Earth but only grows after forty years in Hell.

In the bowl closest to the castle she poured some of Riyta’s purified blood. The blood was necessary for the spell so a small is placed in enchanted vials in each castle on reserve in the event of anything upsetting the balance of the realm.

Following that she adds a small candle to each bowl, steadiest them, and pulls the lighter out of her pocket. Claire could hear Rowena sigh behind her, knowing full well that Claire could conjure a flame faster than it took to light Pops’ old lighter, but Claire didn’t care. Her overtaking, her fire starter. 

She inevitably does use her magic to light a flame in the center bowl though.

Claire took a deep breath and looked back up at the silver smoke in front of her. “Oh great balance above, I call upon thee as a child of magic to grant out continuance on this day, in procession of the order of the greats. Show me whom I seek.”

The smoke twisted and thrashed, before it froze and a figure stepped forth. She was much older than Claire; Riyta watched her through dark thinning hair and lidded eyes.

Claire took a deep breath, the first part of the spell ‘The Summoning’ was over. She was one third of the way done.

She began the next verse of the spell with growing confidence. “I call upon thee, Riyta, the thirty eighth to bear its power, to relinquish your hold, unburden yourself to this task.”

There was a pull in Claire’s chest as the witch writhed in pain. The flames in the center bowl shot upwards and pulled the smoky vision of the dead witch forwards. The hazy silver cloud that once depicted Riyta swirled around the flames in a speed that blurred in Claire’s vision before dissipating.

The center flame fell, then, back to fit in the bowl in front of Claire. She took several deep breaths, calming her racing heart before continuing.

She had completed ‘The Relinquishment’, not she just had to complete the part of the spell that is most difficult. The one part she and Rowena could never practice.

The small flame closest to the castle matched the silver smoke that still filled the entryway before her.

Claire pulls the final thing out of her bag; a vial of her own blood. 

She uncorks it.

She takes a deep breath before completing the ritual.

She tips the vial towards the bowl.

“I, Claire Novak-Winchester, the newest Successor, take on hold; of the magic, the claim, and the protection, of West Castle and it’s lands, nature, and peoples. For Oz, for witchkind, and for all. _Accipio._ ”

The last word it only whispers and the final drop of her blood hits the bowl and it shimmers purple.

She grabs for the final candle beside her and slowly lowers it to the bowl. As it touches her blood she murmurs, “ _Te lumine,_ ” And the candle ignites.

She leans back and sits on her heels; the flames of each bowl slowly rising. A pillar of silver flames across from her, pillars of golden ones to the sides, and a dark violet pillar emerged in front of her.

The four outer flames started to spin around the center one. Soon the golden flames were no longer visible. Then the silver melted away.

Only when the entirety of the flames matched the color swirling through Claire’s irises did the smoke start to move.

A swirl of the silver cloud was pulled towards the flame, like a thin piece of cotton candy.

The smoke connected with the flame and it too started to dissipate. The hazy silver cloud started to slowly shift into the deep violet shade of the flames, and soon, once it was all purple, it evaporated into the air.

The large flame in front of her shrunk, until it was five flames once again, then they all disappeared.

‘The Acceptance’ was completed.

The hall was dark, as was the air around her.

Claire turned, barely able to see her companions.

The darkness around her only seemed to remind Claire that time had passed; that she actually went and did that.

It started with Dorothy, she conjured a pale blue flame on her hand. She was standing between Charlie and Kaia, Alex was standing behind Claire’s girlfriend. Rowena followed, her flame leaning to the pink side of purple; illuminating Pops, Papa, and Slightly further away was a sheepish looking Sam, whom she will henceforth be referring to solely as Uncle Moose. Julien was last to get with the program, his flame was a soft yet surprisingly bright lavender that allowed Claire to see Jody and Donna.

Claire beamed at her family all around her. She had thought that this would change something, that in some way the relationship she had with the people she loved would alter. But that wasn’t the case, they loved her and she loved them.

“ _We’ll always be here for you. That’s what family is,_ ” Pops told her earlier, and Claire will always remember it.

“ _This is perfect for you Claire, you were always destined to do great things._ ” Papa was right, all of this: It’s who she was meant to be.

There was power coursing through her veins that Rowena had unlocked days ago and the Castle Ritual had brought fully to the surface.

Claire smiled to herself, knowing that no one could actually make out the tear that was sliding down her face right now.

For the first time in many years Claire felt a sort of contentment that only came when something felt inexplicably right, it had last happened when she finally called Dean ‘Pops’ for the first time.

Claire lit her own violet flame in her left hand, no one said anything as she moved towards Kaia. Once in front of her, Claire held out her right hand for her girlfriend to take.

Silently Claire pulled Kaia close and walked the two of them over to West Castle.

Claire’s combat boots hit the stone floor at the same time as Kaia’s converse. The same energy that was running through Claire was electric in the air inside of the Castle.

After a full step inside Claire was able to light a torch on the wall, causing all the torches along that wall to light. A line of small violet flames lead deep into the Castle.

Claire spared one final glance back to her family before she and Kaia took off at a run into the Castle.

Into their new home and place of freedom.

Into their _Castle._

It was perfect.

Claire was Queen of the Castle and Kaia was the Queen’s Consort.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you don't hate me for wasting however long it took you to read this... Also the ending if so fluffy or whatever cause I did want it to feel finished.
> 
> If you have any suggestions/alterations/additions please leave them down below.
> 
> Thank you as always to Van'ty for being an excellent (if somewhat volentold) beta. We're almost at the end lol.


	13. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three months have passed since that day in Oz, let's see what our friends have been up to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before you read I have a few things I'd like to say:
> 
> 1) A work that helped to inspire this is: When The Levee Breaks by FunnyWings (can't add link, sorry)
> 
> 2) A shout out for my Beta, Van'ty, because she wasn't expecting to agree to preview 45k and deal with me panicking weekly.
> 
> 3) A thank you to Whoeversaidpineapplepizzabadyomomsahoe because you've been here since the beginning and have been a great motivator along the way.
> 
> 4) Whether you've been here before I finished it, or only after, thank you for passing my fic and deciding to click on it, I hope you find your time was well spent.

**Sam**

Things were different after that day in Oz; for Sam and the Men of Letters across America.

When they, Sam, Dean, and Cas, returned to the bunker John and Styne were waiting for them. Mary had ran back to the bunker with her tail between her legs days prior and the three Seniors attempted to retake the Head position from Dean.

But Dean, who had a lot of contacts in a lot of places apparently, managed to easily gain the vote of all of the Head’s of the individual bunkers across America. Most either knew him or knew of him through monsters. Thus, his new position as Head of the American Branch of the Men of Letters (or HABMoL as Sam had taken to saying in his head) was officialized with very little resistance.

After a few days at the bunker, however, Sam was itching for something he had never allowed himself to want. 

He wanted to hunt.

The one he went on years ago and the pseudo-hunt that the trip to Oz was, exposed him to the lifestyle, he wanted more.

Dean took some persuading, though, before he would let Sam join some of the other Men of Letters on actual hunts. He seemed convinced that he was to blame for Sam not becoming a Lawyer and escaping the Men of Letters for a normal apple pie life with Jessica like he should have.

Sam had to reassure him, repeatedly, that he came back because their parents never gave him a real choice in the matter and that Sam was choosing to stay with the Men of Letters and help with hunting.

In the end it took Cas talking (Sam asked for brain bleach when Dean alluded that it may have taken a _little_ more than that) to Dean in order for Sam to be allowed to help.

Training to hunt was very different than any other training Sam had received as a student or a Men of Letters. Jody, who was training Sam, basically took him along on a couple hunts and had him do everything short of actually interacting with the monsters.

There was also a lot of fighting training, in which different hunters came through the bunker to demonstrate different fighting styles to all the Men of Letters that wanted to hunt. That is to say, they kicked the asses of several Men of Letters before teaching them how to do it as well.

Sam’s partner during hand to hand and melee training was Ava. She would become his official hunting partner once Dean got official approval to send them on Men of Letters approved hunts.

Before they were allowed to go on a hunt together every Men of Letters that wanted to go hunting was required to go on one hunt with an experienced hunter and work it alone, only using the hunter during a fight or for lore related questions.

When it was Ava’s turn to go on her hunt, she was going with Ellen Harvelle. Sam, who wanted to hide when he first saw her talking with Dean in the library, cautiously approached her. He profusely apologized about the hunt, what he did to Garth, and anything else he might have done the last time they met.

Ellen said it wasn’t his fault for doing what he thought was right, but if he tried something like that now she’d shoot him fulla rock salt.

When he asked her to pass the message onto Jo, she just gave him an address card for a hunter bar called Harvelle’s Roadhouse and told him to do so himself if he was ever in the area.

The following day Dean approached him with a hunt they were going on.

“Wait you’re taking me on my training hunt?” Sam asked incredulously. When Mary was Head Sam would rarely see her more than every two weeks but he’d seen Dean, who was significantly more busy than Mary ever was, managed to have at least a quick conversation almost every _day_ in the past months.

“This ain’t preschool, Sammy; a hunt’s a hunt, no training wheels involved,” Dean said, tossing a folder at him, “I got Charlie to give me the best hunt she scraped up.”

“How’d you manage that?”

“Dude I’m like a freaking rockstar to hunters, they’d give me whatever case I wanted.”

“Really?” Sam asked, awed.

Dean laughed. “Hell no, hunter’s are territorial bastards, but we still got a good one ‘cause everyone wants to know if you have half my hunting skills,” Dean said, shrugging.

“So you’re like the Picasso of hunting?”

Dean seemed to sober up. “I’m good enough that a hell of a lot of monsters like coming after my family.”

Sam gained an understanding of his brother then, that all the stories of monsters and apocalypses had taken a toll on the boy Sam once knew. 

They left shortly after that, taking the Impala out to Jericho, California. Sam pulled out the case file on the way while Dean muttered something about pretentious people and folders, because he always just found a hunt and went to it (in his words, “Too much paperwork now, friggin’ bureaucrats.”).

They stopped at a gas station on the way there. Dean walked Sam through the process of running a credit card scheme once they were on the road again. It wasn’t entirely a needed skill anymore because Dean was allocating some of the excess money the Men of Letters had to help fund hunters and Charlie (in ways Dean would not say) got them money easily as well.

The hunt, according to Dean because the folder was taken away from Sam several hours back, was a case involving ten men who vanished off the Centennial Highway in the past twenty years.

Sam had already been taught by Jody how to make fake I.D.’s but Dean told him to stay in the car. Sam had switched the radio to something that played music younger than he was when Dean returned and threw an I.D. at Sam’s head.

“Dude, the fuck, ow,” He complained before flipping the badge open, “Scully, really? Let me guess yours is Mulder.”

Dean grinned like the overgrown child that Sam found out he was. “Awesome right? No one ever questions what’s written on a badge.”

Sam chuckled to himself at Dean’s lack of shits given regarding authority, because he ran part of a massive world wide top secret organization, before Dean turned to him with a stony expression. “House rules, Sammy,” He switched the music back, “Driver picks the music shotgun shuts his cake hole.”

Sam shot him a bitch face, but no more was said regarding the years old rule that Sam remembered only after the event that would be fatal to most people.

They finished the hunt with Dean smashing his car into Constance Welch’s house and having her children take her spirit away from the world.

When they arrived back at the bunker two days later Linda was waiting for them in the garage. She holds a folder out to Dean when they approach. “He did well I presume?” She asked the elder brother.

Dean grinned wildly and looked between the two of them. “Sammy here is all grown up,” He informs her.

“Excellent, great work Sam.”

Sam felt a rush of pride shoot through him, he was happy to please Linda. Mary was never one to tell him when he did well, only mentioning it when he was lacking. Linda had always been more of a mother to him than his own; he supposed that Dean felt the same, although Jody was like a parent to his brother as well.

Dean signs the paper inside of the folder before handing it back to Linda in exchange for a small key ring. “C’mere,” He said to Sam, leading him to an older Chevy.

“What’s this Dean?” He asked uncertainly.

“‘70 Corvette Stingray,” Dean smirked, “All cleaned up and ready for you Sammy.”

“What, I- um,” Sam spluttered.

“Yeah, she’s all yours,” Dean pulled him by the arm behind the car, popping open the trunk, “I had Cas grab you everything you’ll need to go hunting.”

The car, similar to Baby, had a hidden trunk filled with a stockpile of weapons. There were several guns, a machete and some knives, and an assortment of other lore related items.

“I- um,” Sam tried again before he remembered that there was really only one thing to say, “Thanks, Dean.”

“You ready?” Dean asked, raising an eyebrow at his sputtering brother.

Sam nodded. He was ready; it had taken some time even after Dean got back, but Sam was finally willing to say that he was past most of the bullshit the Men of Letters drilled into him. He was his own person now, just like he had wanted to be all those years ago.

And it was all thanks to Dean.

Dean handed him the keys to the car before placing a hand on top of the open trunk. “You’ve got work to do,” He said.

Dean let the trunk fall closed.

**Dean**

Dean left Sam by the car to walk into the bunker with Linda following him. 

Cas standing at the map table when they approached; there were several folders divided between three piles in front of him. Dean went to stand beside his boyfriend with Linda opposite them.

“What’s up here?” Dean asked, indicating the stacks of folders detailing whether or not someone passed their solo hunt opportunity. The Lebanon bunker was switching over from research centralized to focusing on actually dealing with the issues that arise around them, anything from small hunts to major things like the Leviathan which the Men of Letters failed to do anything about.

Any one that passed the hunt was staying at the bunker. Those who chose to not partake would be considered for relocation to one of the research focused bunkers, or to be one of the few non-hunting Men of Letters in Lebanon. And those that failed would be sent to another bunker, or considered for removal based on why they didn’t pass.

Cas looked away from the folders at him. “This one is for the people who have not arrived back yet,” He pointed to the stack as he indicated it, “This one is for those that passed. And the last is for those that didn’t.”

Dean was thankful that the last stack only contained two folders. He grabbed the first one; it read ‘ _Andrew Dabb_ ’ and outlined several major mistakes the man made during the hunt that showed him to be rather terrible at doing his job as a Men of Letter, not just a hunter. Dean shrugged, he never really liked that guy much anyways.

The other folder however, was more surprising. ‘ _Gordon Walker_ ’ was outlined as untrustworthy to hunt with, but still a good Men of Letters. “Does this mean I can get rid of him now?” He asked.

“You have the authority to request a transfer for anyone in the bunker to move elsewhere, or even recommend they be removed from their position,” Linda reminded him because he, of course, knew this from striping Mary and John of their titles and membership within the Men of Letters.

“Okay then,” he decided, “I want him out,” He indicated Dabb’s file, then Walker’s, “And transfer him as soon as possible please.”

Linda nodded before accepting the two files from him. She left the room towards Dean’s office to start filing the two requests. 

Dean turned back to his boyfriend; it was hard for him to believe that most of this was real. Back before he left, Dean would have thrown holy water in the face of anyone that suggested that in ten years he would be (more than effectively) running the bunker alongside his angel boyfriend.

As it turned out, most Men of Letters actually disagreed with a lot of the organization’s opinions regarding how monsters are treated and what people are thought of for their relationships within and outside (which were banned completely before) of the Men of Letters.

That is to say, Dean dating a dude and letting hunters in and Men of Letters actually talk to others went over exceptionally well for the most part.

It hadn’t been a surprise when Dean was challenged for his position by John and Styne, even though the prior could not have the position again and the latter was not of the right blood or marriage line.

Afterwards Dean was happy to tell the three of them to pack their things and let them know that their titles and positions as Men of Letters would be stripped immediately.

Another change that came to the Seniors at the bunker was that Magnus, the eldest Senior there, decided to finally retire. Because he, “Doesn’t need to babysit Mary and her totalitarianism anymore.”

The vote, the one to officially make him HABMoL (Sam’s acronym, not his), took place amongst the Heads of each bunker across the states. Dean won that with almost a landslide against Mary retaking the position because all of them either hated Mary as Head or had heard of Dean through the supernatural grapevine.

Things changed under Dean’s Headship; Cas was leading with him and Linda had technically become the second in command after Mary, John, Styne, and Magnus all departed. The only other Senior Men of Letters at the bunker, then, was Gwen so people from other bunkers had to move in to fill the opened positions.

Other members moved bunkers because Dean pushed the intentions of the organization towards saving people and hunting things instead of mindless research.

Out of his old friends, Gordon was transferred to Alaska to track migration patterns of several arctic monsters, Cole was transferred and put on probation after he refused to be tested by an actual hunter and insisted Dean just give him the promotion due to their old friendship, Bela was the only one Dean was disappointed to see go.

Bela and Dean had a close friendship between the years of Charlie leaving and Dean following her. The two of them only really put up with the other two people their age at the bunker because they didn’t really have a choice. She was transferring over to Boise of her own request because that bunker had a heavy focus on the tracking and removal of supernatural objects from the general population.

It was odd being in the bunker and being introduced, and reintroduced, to people who would technically be his subordinates. He never really played the boss card, but he still tried to maintain authority like he did around other hunters to get things done properly.

It helped having Cas there, so Dean was never without his family. And many hunters, both close and not quite as, would stop by for food or a bed for the night whenever they were in the area. Charlie dropped by whenever she felt like it, even though the bunker wasn’t her favorite place; she even took the hunting program she developed and worked it into the bunkers preexisting system. Claire, Jody, and the rest of his family called and stopped by whenever they could as well.

Dean could also leave whenever he pleased now.

“Hey Cas,” Dean said smiling when he greeted his boyfriend for the first time since arriving back.

Cas smiled back at him before saying, “Hello, Dean.”

The two just stared at one another for a long time, happily just being in the presence of one another. They had a safe place to live and they could continue to help people and do good. Cas also enjoyed the fact that, unless Dean was truly needed or wanted to go hunting with Sam, he would be staying away from any actual danger.

They had, at one point, thought about living in Sioux Falls with Jody, the girls, and Bobby, but now Alex had her own life for the most part and Claire and Kaia were in Oz. Plus Dean and Cas were not huge fans of doing nothing and they were a little too dead (Dean) and non-existant (Cas) to the federal government, to live as themselves anywhere.

Outside of hunting Jody and Donna were sheriffs and Bobby ran his scrapyard, but Dean and Cas always needed more. It’s why they never officially retired their guns/angel blade.

Running the Men of Letters was the perfect balance for the two of them. Safety and challenge.

“Welcome back, I presume your hunt was a success?”

Dean leaned in towards his boyfriend. “Home, Cas,” He whispered against Cas’ lips, “It’s welcome back home.”

“Home it is then,” Cas smiled before leaning in and pressing their lips together.

**Claire**

“You know this isn’t your home right?” Claire asked Krillian who was upside down on one of the couches in the largest seating room in the castle.

“You have plenty of space,” He reminded.

Claire glared at him. He wasn’t wrong, they were in a freaking castle and it’s not like he took up a lot of space. She just disagreed with him being there on the merits that he and her girlfriend got along a little _too_ well.

Not in the romantic way, but in the Krillian made Kaia his protegee and the two of them have made it their life goal to annoy the living hell out of Claire, kind of way.

She hated them for it.

And loved them for it at the same time.

Her family was made up of a lot of annoying shits, but she could give as good as she got and at the end of the day they all loved each other and that’s what matters.

That didn’t mean she had to make it easy for him. “C’mon,” She grabbed and pulled his arm, “Up.”

“Why,” He groaned, rolling onto the floor with a soft thud.

“‘Cause you owe me.”

His head snapped up to look at her. “And how exactly is that?”

“You gave my girlfriend wylm rose, she could have seriously hurt someone,” Claire raised an accusative eyebrow at him, “Or _herself_.”

Krillian said something that might have been, “But she didn’t,” Before getting up and letting Claire lead him out of the room.

It wasn’t that Claire was actually mad at Krillian, they both knew she wasn’t, just that he was somewhat responsible for Kaia being in that fight at all when she could have easily stayed back with Kevin and Krillian. Not that Kaia would have without the wylm rose, she was too stubborn not to try to save her girlfriend.

Claire just likes to be a dick to him, just as he likes to do to her. His mother, Madam Ira, says it’s because they’re too much alike to get along like civilized people.

They ended up in the library on the other side of the castle. It was large and it reminded Claire of the one in Rowena’s castle more so than the one at Dorothy’s. It was high ceilinged and the walls were covered in dark shelving with some tall narrow windows separating them.

It wasn’t Claire’s favorite room, she would prefer to hunt a monster than read about it, but she wanted to go through all the books and catalogue what was there. That was the official story anyways, Krillian and her both knew she was really doing this because Kaia had almost moved into the library instead of Claire’s room because she loved it so much.

They had been working on the library for the past few days anytime Kaia was out exploring Oz. West had flourished since Claire took control of the castle and balance was returned to the realm; animals, magic and not, had returned to West, Nar virus was once again eradicated by Julien once it wasn’t reappearing randomly across her domain, and many of the people who had been forced to move to border cities during Riyta’s reign or West’s collapse returned to their old homes.

There was a large amount of construction to be done after resettling, but most of that had finished by now.

Kaia loved to walk around the small towns both near and far from their castle, she was the one of the two of them that would go out and talk to everyone and see if everything is well. She is usually a quiet person, but she doesn’t hesitate to ask if anyone needed help.

Claire, on the other hand, was making use of her new title in different ways; she started by removing several of the policies that Riyta had put in place and making better ones of her own in their place.

It was Claire’s job to improve life in West and she was doing it to the very best of her ability.

This is not to say, however, that she was doing it alone. Kaia, her love, and Krillian, who was basically living at the castle anyways, were her main people to lean on when she needed help, but Charlie, Dorothy, and a reluctant Rowena were always close by as well.

Claire loves her castle, especially when her family drops by to visit. Jody and Donna each made time to stop by even though they are always quite busy hunting while also being sheriffs; Alex managed to somehow sneak her way into the castle on more than one occasion; and her dads each stopped by individually several times, and together once, but they were in a similar position to Claire with their new rule over the Men of Letters so she more than understands them not being here full time even though she knows they would like to be.

Almost two hours after Claire forced Krillian into the library a slim pair of arms wrapped around Claire’s middle, along with a chin hooking over her shoulder.

“What have you been up to?” Kaia whispered into her ear.

Claire turned in her girlfriend’s arms. “Just getting all the books ready for you,” She answers out loud.

From the end of the row Claire hears a disgruntled, “That’s my queue to leave, you two have fun,” Before a set of footsteps retreated.

Kaia pouted at her. “You didn’t have to do that, you’ve been so busy.”

Claire smiled at her. “I’m never too busy for you Love,” She whispered back.

She always made time for Kaia, the Dreamwalker was her safe space and comfort zone all wrapped into a beautiful ball of adorable sweetness. All it took was Claire meeting her once before she understood the sappy looks Dean and Cas share all too often.

Kaia gives her a suspicious look before Claire quietly adds, “And I want you to like it here,”

Kaia didn’t respond for a moment and Claire felt herself rub at the light marks on her wrists where the Moronic Men of Letters (MMoL) handcuffed her before she could take West. Long story short, they thought Charlie was Rowena and therefore the red headed witch with Claire must not be the dangerous one and that meant Claire was.

Like she said, _moronic_.

“I like it here,” Kaia decided after a pause. Claire raised an eyebrow so she continued, “It just feels right here you know? I haven’t had a nightmare since the first night here.”

Claire’s eyes widened in surprise; she knew, of course, that Kaia’s nightmares hadn’t been bad in the past few months, but them being gone completely?

“That’s amazing,” Claire said to her girlfriend, then she remembered the book of succession and what Rowena said about destiny. “I was destined to rule West,” She looked into Kaia’s deep brown eyes, “And you, to be by my side. That’s why your dreams stopped, you don’t need them to guide you anymore.”

“Destiny,” Kaia tested out the word before smiling, “I like it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A couple random thins:
> 
> 1) Did you catch the pilot refs in Sam's part?
> 
> 2) That (you should know what I'm talking about) is maybe one of the most passive-aggressive things I've ever put on the internet.
> 
> 3) Every character I mention or show in the fic it mentioned/shown in this.
> 
> 4) I'm about to post this and there are tears in my eyes. I finished this... jfc

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this please leave a kudo or comment, they are lovely to receive.
> 
> Uploads of this should, most likely, come on Sundays.


End file.
